Well, the US Primaries are starting in just a few days now. It’s an interesting race when both sides are selecting candidates in the Primaries. The Republican field is still split so wide open that noone can have a good guess as to who would win it.
On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton will probably win in a canter for mine. Much has been made of the recent rise of Obama but the tendency of people go to with safety over unpredictability should see Clinton win the nomination.
Obama’s campaign, one would say, is much more about 2012 or 2016 than it is 2008. Obama’s the kind of politician that people will side with more and more as people become jaded with politics.
If Bill Clinton’s administration is anything to go by, Hillary’s will be repeatedly rocked by scandal. Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to believe in anything besides the idea that she should be President. She’s the least principled of the Democrats. On the Republican side this title falls to Giuliani and possibly Romney.
In the Democrat primary I would vote for Obama.
In the Republican primary I would vote for Ron Paul.
If I had to choose between Obama and Paul I would choose Ron Paul 10/10 times. I have been looking at a lot of his campaign over the past few days and he’s an extraordinarily different man to your average politician.
You get the sense that it’s not about him at all, it’s completely about his beliefs and his desire to do the best for the United States. He’s a Libertarian who believes that the IRS should be abolished.
I agree with him on some points - such as the IRS - but not on others, such as Iraq, although I most certainly respect his arguments vis-a-vis the Middle East because they have solid foundations.
He’s been an absolute sensation on the internet and I finally decided to watch one of his YouTube videos the other day and kept on watching for about 3 hours. He has a certain kind of charisma, but he also - at the age of 72 - comes across as a bit of a doddering old fogey on other occasions. He needs to improve certain areas such as directly answering the question from the interviewer and avoiding going off on tangential rants as he does basically every time a question is posed to him.
He has a pretty attractive political philosophy which includes Right-To-Life beliefs - quite uncommon amongst Libertarians. Although he’s polling single digits for the Primaries he will hopefully have an influence on the Republican discourse - like the Liberals, they have lost their way.
If he manages to bring up a protege with the same beliefs but who is younger and better at answering the questions in a direct and concise manner, I think his beliefs have a chance of catching on.
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December 26, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Anthony
I think Ron Paul has some interesting ideas on stuff like social security, but his policies on the U.N. and international trade etc seem a little backward, if not actually crazy. He also wants to end birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, meaning that if you’re born to an illegal immigrant you will be a stateless person which to me sounds kinda cruel.
December 26, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Mat
Yooo
Interesting comment
I’m obviously still fairly new to Ron Paul but I find that all his policies which sound very unusual at first then fit nicely into his logic and then it becomes very hard to argue against.
Re: the UN thing I don’t really believe in the UN, but even so I don’t fully get his policies .. yet. I know the concept is that the further removed government is, the more damage it does. So his belief is that the UN is the worst possible form of government, the Federal the second worst etc It’s hard to fully get his position on this because none of the journalists that I have watched have ever asked him about it.
Re: international trade I’ve never heard him talk about this but the abolition of tariffs and subsidies is classic libertarian positions, are you saying he deviates from that?
And re: the illegal immigrant thing are you sure they will be a stateless person? I know of many cases of a kid being born in one country but defaulting to citizenship of his parents’ country. I’m not sure if this can apply in the sense of Mexico and the United States. The argument on that one is completely based around economic incentives.
If you give someone an economic incentive to break a law, then you shouldn’t be surprised when they choose to break the law. In this case, the children of illegal immigrants are going to US public schools. So the parents of the children have an economic incentive. And then the hospitals are serving illegals, which is another incentive. I don’t know what he proposes here - that illegals should be denied medical care? I’m not sure. But every time he gets asked a question he answers it in such a different way but in logic that makes such simple sense. His answers are hard to predict because we’re so used to political spin. Often he gives the exact opposite answer of political spin and you’re like, wow, yeh, so true….
I’m going to keep on reading and updating myself on Paul. I know I disagree with him on some areas maybe but the bulk of his message - that government should be small, and that taxes should be small - is something I agree with.
December 27, 2007 at 9:13 am
Anthony
Hey Mat, I also think that government should be small and taxes low. My understanding of Ron Paul’s position on trade is that he doesn’t want the North American Free Trade Agreement because he thinks it is causing some kind of North American Super State.
As far as the illegal immigration thing goes, when I first saw the ‘no citizenship’ policy I thought it was a good idea, but then I realised that for a Mexican it is probably better to be a stateless person in America with a job and a full belly than to be a starving citizen in Mexico. So even if people are denied citizenship people will still come just to get jobs and support their families back home. I’d also point out that countries like the US and Australia receive significant contributions from their immigrants illegal or otherwise, trying to get rid of kids born in your country seems like a waste to me.
I think that if the US wants to stop illegal immigration it needs to secure its borders. As far as economic incentives go, people who employ illegal immigrants should probably face punitive sanctions so they won’t hire illegals. Why wouldn’t those measures give a similar outcome to not giving people citizenship?
Lastly, you also said that Ron Paul seemed to be a breath of fresh air… what about the politicians/candidates that you’ve worked for, have any of them run a campaign devoid of spin?
December 27, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Mat
Damn I did a big comment and it disappeared
Re: your last question, I’ve never in my short life seen a campaign devoid of some kind of spin.
I spent a lot of time cutting and pasting from this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_ron_paul
Interestingly I watched a video of his from 1988 and he uses so much of the same language and rhetoric as he uses now. It’s true that the principles of good governance never change.
December 27, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Anthony
Yeah I always copy my comments onto the clipboard after each paragraph in case I lose them.
December 27, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Mat
Hey it’s best to answer your questions from the “political positions of ron paul” page on Wikipedia
Trade
“Paul is a proponent of free trade, and opposes many “free trade agreements” including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),[39] stating that “free-trade agreements are really managed trade”.[40] He says they serve special interests and big business, not citizens.[41] He often proposes instead that the U.S. engage in unilateral free trade by the simple abolition of trade barriers at home (similar to Hong Kong’s approach), rather than send massive, unaccountable foreign aid.” (I really agree with this.)
“Paul also has an above 83% pro fair trade voting record in the House of Representatives according to Global Trade Watch.[18]”
Borders
“Paul believes that the government, neglecting a Constitutional responsibility to protect its borders, has concentrated instead on unconstitutionally policing foreign countries”
So he agrees with you that the best way to do so is to protect the borders. And as far as I know he also believes that the employment of illegals should be severely curtailed.
Re: starving kids in Mexico, is Mexico THAT bad? I didn’t know.
“Paul believes all immigrants should be treated fairly and equally, under law, through “coherent immigration policy”. He has spoken strongly against amnesty for illegal immigrants because he believes it undermines the rule of law, grants pardons to lawbreakers,[46] and subsidizes more illegal immigration.”
He’s almost like John Howard on this, he believes that if the economy was run properly that the USA would let in many immigrants legally without them having to jump through so many hoops, but in the same manner they should come at a time of the USA’s choosing.
Foreign policy is an issue I diverge with him on. But his main plank is government management of finance