I like Ron Paul, but....Personally I think all the money arguments regarding politicians are bogus. Fact will always be that it takes a ton of money to win the presidential election. This was confirmed by Ron Paul's own words yesterday about whether he would run 3rd party "like Ross Perot". He said he wasn't rich enough. Regardless of anything else, you need name recognition and the infrastructure to simply get on the ballot in each state. So to even get started you need a lot of money. You must either be a career politician like Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, and slowly build a name for yourself. Or you must have access to enough money to spread the word. Many people are arguing for congressional term limits to reduce Washington corruption. Ron Paul would essentially be a nobody right now if not for his lengthy political career. I agree that it is nice that RP isn't gonna take a pension and that most of his donors are regular folks. Defenders of Mitt could say that it is honorable that he doesn't take a salary while serving the country, and that he used his own money to furnish his office while governor. During his first run he used a bunch of his own money to campaign, and he was harshly criticized for trying to "buy the election". This time around he has a considerable amount of support including both regular folks and rich donors, and he is harshly criticized for taking money from rich people. Ron Paul hit it on the head, if he isn't supported by the republican party he simply doesn't have the fund raising capacity to win the presidency. To all those who support RP and insist that he can win the nomination, ask yourself a couple questions. Will he still be just as noble when he starts receiving multi-million dollar donations from wealthy individuals and lobbyist groups. I guarantee he won't send their money back. If he will still be viewed as noble despite the donations, why would those same donations inherently make another candidate corrupt?
These are fair points. Unfortunately it does take an absurd amount of money to win a Presidential election. The problem is that this usually means that politicians have to prostitute themselves out to big money interests. If George Soros, Bill Gates, Goldman Sachs, or Haliburton sends a bunch of money your way you know that a quid pro quo is expected. Ron Paul is currently the second best funded candidate on the Republican side and that is almost entirely due to small donations from ordinary people who don't want him to do any more than what he says he wants to do.
Yes, but the fact remains that he is a distant second in fundraising and Romney has even more small donations from ordinary people than RP. What I am mainly suggesting is that if you compare the personal lives of the candidates, Romney is arguably just as noble and upstanding as Paul. Neither has a scandalous past or anything but debatable political baggage. I would be very careful basing support for Paul largely on the idea that he hasn't taken donations from billionaires or lobbyists. If I believe that he can win the nomination, then I also must accept the fact that hundreds of millions will be contributed by influence peddlers if he does win, and he will not reject the money. Objectively speaking, if that is a blemish on all other candidates then it will be for Paul as well. My solution... drop that argument all together. They are both upstanding people by most measures. A few key policy issues are the only valid argument one way or the other.
I agree that the main reason to vote for a candidate should be 1. The policies he advocates. 2. Whether his past record indicates that he actually means what he says. My problem with Romney is that he fails on (2). On nearly every issue -- abortion, illegal immigration, TARP bailouts, health care mandates -- Romney has taken opposite sides at different times. So people voting for him have no idea of what they're going to get, except that it's pretty certain that Romney, like Gingrich or Santorum, is promising us a war with Iran. That's the one policy where I believe that Romney will deliver what he's promising. Having said all that, as a purely secondary matter, I do think it is telling to see who is supporting which candidates.