[sethypooh21]

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Seth--

Could you elaborate on the Paul comment--"It was a mistake to fight the civil war."

He seems like a really cool guy...I'd be interested in hearing about a potential bad side to him.

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When he was on Bill Maher's show this spring they talked about it. His full response isn't quite as crazy as that (he thinks it would have been resolved economically, as it was in Britain and other former slave states, and that would have worked out better for everyone. Aside from presumably the people who would still have been slaves from 1865 to 1900 or whenever...I think most historians would disagree with him as a factual matter, but working from his premises, it's not the most ridiculous argument ever) but how many people are going to get past the initial "WTF?" reaction? And there's all kinds of stuff like that.

Now, he will undoubtedly maintain a certain appeal to the Buchananite, isolationist wing of the American right, much like Chuck Hagel, as those are really the only visible conservative pols who AREN'T suggesting that the solution to all problems is more bombs and/or "manliness" - and this one aspect explains both of their popularity to liberals. But once you actually get in there and kick the tires, he's got some ideas that are pretty out there.

I'd still probably vote for him over any other GoP candidate (and I might do that in the primary, to the extent that our primary matters) as I think that as a small-government libertarian type, the amount of actual harm he'd do is limited, but I'd still take every single dem with the possible exception of Biden over him.

Also, if these last 7 years have taught us anything, it's that the "really cool guy, I'd like to have a beer with him" metric is a VERY bad method for choosing a president. (FWIW, I think that fact goes along way towards explaining HRC's popularity - she might not be likeable, but damnit she'll get [censored] done...)