Gauging Ron Paul Support

[NickMPK]

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Browne got .4% and .5% of the vote in 96 and 00 respectively. Paul is polling at 2% (which will clearly go up as the cycle goes on and more people learn about him), so wouldn't that alone suggest that Paul can't be written off to the same fate as Browne? I have no illusions about what number of votes Paul will end up with, but looking at the bigger picture his candidacy will be a big improvement relative to past ones given the characteristics of this election. I am not saying there aren't a long list of past libertarian candidates who have failed but what I am saying is that it's inaccurate to lump Paul in with all of those guys, for reasons I listed above (and the interent of course, how could I forget the biggest one).

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2% of the Republican primary electorate is a much smaller number of people than 0.5% of the general electorate.

And asserting that this number clearly go up is just making the same mistake libertarians make every cycle.
No, libertarian have not failed due to lack of publicity.

I have seen Libertarian Party conventions on television. I guarantee that if everyone in America saw what sort of people showed up at those things, the party would become much less popular than it is now.

[ALawPoker]

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Honestly, except for trickle-down tax cuts for the wealthy (not offset by decreased spending) and some loosening of Nixon-era regulations under Reagan, I can't think of any issue on which either of these guys was libertarian.

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I think when you try to say any President was "Libertarian" you will fail miserably. They all have a laundry list of big government tactics. If you want to talk in relative terms though, I don't think it's at all far fetched to consider Reagan up there with anyone. Which President(s) would you say best resemble a "Libertarian"?

Taxes are really half the battle to me. So that alone is enough to at least make him far from the worst in my mind. And even if you don't think he practiced what he preached, his lip service about small government has to count for something, no?

[JackWhite]

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Both nominated Supreme Court justices who seem to generally oppose a right to privacy.


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Blackmun, Kennedy, O'Connor were all Roe v. Wade supporters. Opponents of Reagan/Bush said they had an anti-Roe litmus test for Supreme Court Justices. Combined they appointed 5 Justices: 3 supported Roe. Not much of a litmus test. Granted, that is only one issue, though.

[ALawPoker]

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Do you really not think that Paul is more popular than the libertarian candidates in 04, 00, and 96? Obviously its tough to compare them numerically but choosing to run for the republican nomination instead of under the libertarian party is a great idea.

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I think running on the GOP side is the big thing here. That's what makes Paul so recognized. It isn't so much "Look at this great new Libertarian, Ron Paul" as it is "WOW, a disciplined Libertarian running for one of the main parties, I better pay attention to that."

I agree this is a great move on Paul's part (for him). But I think his relative popularity is a function of that move, and almost entirely that move. I don't see it as something that's gonna change much of anything for Libertarians.

Harry Brown may have only got 0.5% of the vote, but that's 0.5% more than Paul will get in the general election. If Harry Brown ran for the republican nomination, maybe he'd have been polling at 4 or 5% in July. Who knows. They're different things. So I really have no idea what you're trying to compare.

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I'm not sure exactly how you pulled it off, but you managed to repeat everything that I said, quote it, and then disagree with me.

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I thought you were trying to imply Paul is some new force in politics. I'm just saying he isn't. Nothing has changed except someone had the idea to try a new angle.

I do agree with you somewhat, as I tried to indicate with the ever cryptic "I agree that..." I'm just expressing a different take on it. Just cause I quoted you doesn't mean I disagree with everything you're saying.

[XxGodJrxX]

I did a Facebook search for my school to see how many libertarians there were. Results: Libertarians were BY FAR the least popular political position in the school. Even "Very Conservative" was twice as popular as libertarianism. Ultra-Conservativism and libertarianism are not the same thing, regardless of what you Reagan supporters think.

[Richard Tanner]

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I did a Facebook search for my school to see how many libertarians there were. Results: Libertarians were BY FAR the least popular political position in the school. Even "Very Conservative" was twice as popular as libertarianism. Ultra-Conservativism and libertarianism are not the same thing, regardless of what you Reagan supporters think.

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I did the same search worldwide for AC and got a group with 433 as the largest. Regardless of your take either way, you've got to spin those numbers pretty hard to convince me that AC is "taking over" college kids.

Cody

[ShakeZula06]

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Can you cite an issue on which he campaigned on the side of the social libertarians?

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Wiki:
"By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater's libertarian views on personal issues were revealed, which he believed were an integral part of true conservativism. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention.

As a passionate defender of personal liberty, he saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties. In his 1980 Senate reelection campaign, Goldwater won support from religious conservatives but in his final term voted consistently to uphold legalized abortion and, in 1981, gave a speech on how he was angry about the bullying of American politicians by religious organizations, and would "fight them every step of the way".[14] "

"After his retirement in 1987, Goldwater described the conservative Arizona Governor Evan Mecham as “hardheaded” and called on him to resign, and two years later stated that the Republican Party had been taken over by a “bunch of kooks.” In a 1994 interview with the Washington Post the retired senator said,

“ When you say “radical right” today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye. ”

In response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, “Every good Christian should be concerned,” Goldwater retorted: “I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.”[15]"

"Some of Goldwater's statements in the 1990s aggravated many social conservatives. He endorsed Democrat Karan English in an Arizona congressional race, urged Republicans to lay off Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals: “Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.” He also said, “You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.” In 1996 he told Bob Dole, whose own presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans: “We're the new liberals of the Republican Party. Can you imagine that?”

In 1996, with Senator Dennis DeConcini, Goldwater endorsed an Arizona initiative to legalize medical marijuana, against the will of social conservatives."

[bills217]

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You keep saying that this election cycle isn't going to be any different than the the last handful and that Paul won't do any better than the last group of libertarian prospects, but what previous libertarian candidates are you comparing him to?

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All of them. Including Paul 20 years ago.

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Who was the last equivalent version of Paul to fail? Apparently there are tons of similar failures so it should be easy to list one.

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You mean specifically a libertarian running in the GOP primary? I don't know of any, because I don't know why a libertarian would think he has a chance this way. But all libertarian presidential candidates have basically been the same, and they all get basically the same votes.

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Ronald Reagan?
Barry Goldwater?
Richard Nixon?

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LOL @ Reagan and Nixon as Libertarians.

[ShakeZula06]

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I did a Facebook search for my school to see how many libertarians there were. Results: Libertarians were BY FAR the least popular political position in the school. Even "Very Conservative" was twice as popular as libertarianism.

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Doesn't Ron Paul have more Facebook supporters then any other political canidate (except for maybe Obama)?

[Zygote]

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You keep saying that this election cycle isn't going to be any different than the the last handful and that Paul won't do any better than the last group of libertarian prospects, but what previous libertarian candidates are you comparing him to?

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All of them. Including Paul 20 years ago.

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Who was the last equivalent version of Paul to fail? Apparently there are tons of similar failures so it should be easy to list one.

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You mean specifically a libertarian running in the GOP primary? I don't know of any, because I don't know why a libertarian would think he has a chance this way. But all libertarian presidential candidates have basically been the same, and they all get basically the same votes.

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Ronald Reagan?
Barry Goldwater?
Richard Nixon?

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LOL @ Reagan and Nixon as Libertarians.

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umm... they didnt attempt to get elected on libertarian philosophies?

lets see more proof and less laughter if you disagree