Ron Paul’s Iowa Surge
I’d like to think Hugh Hewitt and I are friends. We’ve corresponded with each other regularly over the years, he’s been kind enough to invite me on his radio show a few times, and at a blog conference he sought me out to come hear me speak. Needless to say, given that Hugh is one of the most listened-to national talk show hosts in the country, I was rather flattered.
Yet over the past six months, and possibly longer, I haven’t been able to read much of Hewitt (and I suspect he would say the same about me). I think Hugh is intelligent, but he is far too entrenched in generic, GOP establishment rhetoric. It’s incredibly hard to distinguish between Hewitt’s blog and the website of national Republican party.
So perhaps it’s fitting that blog neighbor Patrick Ruffini – former Bush webmaster, RNC staffer and Giuliani webmaster – now posts on Hugh’s blog. They are in many ways “two peas in a pod”. The two of them represent the epitome of establishment Republicanism; a Bush-style ideology that looks first to the political party, and then to underlying policy. Yet, whatever their misguided political positions may be, they are both highly adept political minds that understand how the “game” of politics works.
I say all of this background in order to stress the significance of a recent piece from Ruffini, posted on Hewitt’s blog, which boldly and blunty proclaims that Ron Paul will place second at the Iowa straw poll. When the GOP establishment fears Ron Paul, perhaps it’s time for the mainstream media to take notice. According to the most recent Gallup poll Ron Paul leads all so-called “second tier” candidates and follows only Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
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15 Responses to “Ron Paul’s Iowa Surge”
I’d like to be wrong about this — it would mean that the bulk of current active members of the GOP are less lunatic than the last 7 years would indicate — but, really, I just don’t see Paul’s candidacy going anywhere. Even if he’s second now in a crowded & non-enthusiasm-generating field, as the various top tier candidates drop, how many of their supporters do you think are likely to go to Paul? E.g., how many members of the GOP primary-voting electorate who are currently McCain supporters do you think are really going to switch to Paul, who is against the war and thinks it was a bad idea from the start? As the crowd thins, I just don’t think you’re going to see much support accrue to Paul. I regret to say that he’s probably at or near his peak of support right now.
Should the unlikely event of a Paul nomination occur, the GOP establishment will undercut him the way they did Goldwater in 1964. Like Goldwater, his positions are that far off from the party’s power brokers.
I agree with you David, and I find the similarities between Paul and Goldwater striking. But what I keep returning to is the realization that, although Goldwater lost the election by a landslide, his ideology ultimately prevailed. His candidacy represented a battle between the old guard of the GOP and a newer, more radical version. It was Goldwater’s conservatism, brandished by Reagan, which ultimately prevailed. Paul won’t win the nomination, but how many future Reagan’s is his candidacy inspiring?
Isn’t a very significant difference between Paul now and Goldwarter then, that there exists now of a mass conservative movement that wasn’t there in Goldwater’s day? It has taken a rather toxic form that Goldwater himself would be none too happy with, but Paul is fighting against both the GOP establishment and the popular movement of the religious right.
None of this is any sort of reason not to promote Paul and argue for his various advantages over the Giuliani et al. clown show. But y’all are going to face some pretty icky choices over the next 15 months.
With a whopping 3%.
Paul is going to be hard-pressed to break 10% with a Republican electorate; a lot of his support seems to come from the liberarian left. He might win a few straw polls and a few delegates, but his paleolibertarian views are going to be a hard sell for the average Republican.
Paul is certainly out of the question in the primaries or the generals. It is also hard to argue that he is a Goldwater. But I do think he is opening people to the idea that a more classically liberal Republican party is both possible and preferable to the current administration. Unfortunately, I think that the Republicans will have to lose everything in 2008 for that message to sink in. I think we will see a modest repeat of 1994 in 2010 and then a strong, truly conservative series of candidates in 2012 as social security and healthcare begin to collapse and the economy slows. We’ll see.
With a whopping 3%. Paul is going to be hard-pressed to break 10% with a Republican electorate; a lot of his support seems to come from the liberarian left.
Uh, well, that 3% is from Republicans only; Libertarians are not included in that figure, and they are likely to give Paul a big boost in primaries where a libertarian is unexpected and not traditional.
If you consider the large number of Libertarian, Constitution Party, and even Democrat voters who will be registering Republican (where necessary) to vote for Paul, I wouldn’t be surprised if their exclusion from the polls due to not being active GOP voters knocks 1-2% off Paul’s total. The 2004 LP and CP nominees have both basically endorsed Paul, and he is receiving very positive attention from the party heads (such as Jim Clymer of the CP).
The polls also don’t account for non-voters, unregistered voters, and young people who plan to vote for Paul.
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that Ron Paul is expected to come in 2nd, when Guiliani, Thompson, and McCain are not even showing up. The simple reason that Paul will place second is that he you buy your ranking in Ames. Romney has the money to buy first place and Paul (the money leader among the 2nd tier) can afford to come in second.
At Ames the candidates pay for the tickets, parking, etc., which means the one that is willing to pay for more supporter will have more supporters to cast a vote for them. As race42008 notes, “Truth be told, the real winner of the Ames Straw Poll is the Iowa GOP which hosts the event as its annual fundraiser.”
To realize how truly insignificant Ames is as a predictor of the actual race, consider who came in second in 1999: Steve Forbes.
Ron Paul believes the government planned and implemented the 911 attacks.
More needs saying?
…and, apparently, the tinfoil-hatted moron brigade has it in for Paul as well.
“More needs saying?”
Yes, more needs saying. Specifically, that Dr. Paul does NOT believe that. Some nutjobs who happen to support him believe that – but you can’t pin a position on a candidate just because some of his supporters hold it.
True. In an interview with Reason’s “Hit and Run” blog, Paul clarified that he doesn’t believe in 9/11 conspiracies. Yet because of vague statements he’s made to conspiracy groups like Student Scholars for Truth and radio host Alex Jones, those groups have been able to paint him as an ally.
I think it’s rather odd to see commets which suggest Paul’s increase on polls is due to some supporters of the liertairan movement… Why? The GOP only calls the GOP members so why suggest a lie?
Ron Pauls supports grows faster then any other GOP member. Our Ron Paul group started with 4 members after the first debate and last night we had over 127 attend. Most are GOP members and some or left and some have not decided.
Lets keep an open mind about Paul. After all Paul is the only member of the gop with a voting history to support small gov ideals.
The results of Mainstream media polls are flat out false and thoroughly UNSCIENTIFIC. This includes Zobgy, Gallup, et. al
Why?
[1] Pollsters fail to account for the Electoral College. A presidential race is not one, but more than 50, since some states allow of splitting electoral votes.
[2] Polling over several days invalidates polls. Since news affects beliefs and choices, all pollsters are doing is collecting invalid, time shifted opinions of respondents.
[3] Polling results are good only for the day taken and do not carry forward into subsequent days since new news events shift all persons beliefs and wants about their expected futures.
Read my thorough explanation of this very serious failure by Pollsters and Mainstream media here