Seen at Captain’s Quarters:
A funny thing happened on my way to the predictable onslaught of Ron Paul supporters in my comments section after yesterday’s post about his newsletters. The onslaught never arrived — and neither did the supposed Revolution from New Hampshire. Could the two be related?
The newsletters reference is in regard to recent publicity about some extremely bigoted remarks that appeared in newsletters circulated by Ron Paul several years ago. The comments are harsh enough to have me questioning whether I can still pursue my plan to vote for Paul in support of the message, given that his day in the positive side of the media spotlight might be past.
There is a response from the Paul campaign, BTW:
“The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.
“In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should only be concerned with the content of a person’s character, not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S. House on April 20, 1999: ‘I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.’
“This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It’s once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.
“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.â€
Anywho… realistically, I don’t know whether Ron Paul’s failure to achieve double-digits and beat Giuliani in New Hampshire is a function of the newsletter bombshell as much as increased interest among realistically viable candidates. Given the opportunity to vote for a candidate you like (or at least “strongly tolerate”), or given an opportunity to vote for a viable opponent of a candidate you hate…I’ve got to believe that average folks will likely do so, rather than pursue a protest vote option.
I do notice, like Captain Ed, that I’ve encountered a lot less buzz (and spam) from Paul’s minions. One could, I suppose, attribute that to intra-campaign and Libertarian calls for better behavior….but I wonder if the “Revolution” might finally be fizzling.
One final thought — with all the fuss of how far off the Democrats’ polls were as compared to last night’s results, I also note a conspicuous lack of talk regarding how polling methodology allegedly omits likely Paul voters due to their alleged preference of cell phones rather than hardwired phones. I think those are valid concerns…but it didn’t seem to prove to be a significant bias this time around.
1 response so far ↓
1 Randy // 10 Jan 2008 at 12:07 pm
I will take Dr. Paul at his word that he is not bigoted. What does it say that he allowed that kind of racist writing to go out under his name? The New Republic article had several examples, published over a period of years, that were published without a by-line (so we don’t know the writer to whom the articles could be attributed). I cna understand one or two articles slipping through the cracks, but this was far more than that. Was Dr. Paul so uninvolved with the “Ron Paul Report” that he never read it?