Redstate

Posted at 4:46pm on Jun. 10, 2008 The Ron Paul National Convention

Where are Vis Numar and Lyndon LaRouche?

By Mark Kilmer

In case this matters to anyone, Dr. Ron Paul has rented the Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for his won, little "mini-convention." This convergence of the Paulites will occur on September 2, the second day of the GOP Convention in St. Paul and perhaps in conjunction with some harmonic convergence of the outer planets in the cusp of the minor star of death. (Someone call Vis Numar. Quickly.)

Paul's plan to stage his own event is bad news for McCain, said G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College.

"Conventions are about demonstrating unity and purpose and showcasing the nominee. They are media events made for prime-time TV. Any distraction from the central message of the convention is not helpful," Madonna said.

True enough, Mr. Madonna, but I am afraid that you are living in an immaterial world, and you are an… oh, never mind.

The question is, how much unity does John McCain want to show with the followers of a man who might free the markets nicely but would, if he had his druthers, force America back into its 18th Century shell, surrendering in Iraq and essentially queuing the bad guys (terrorists, rogue actors) to take their best shot. Why, we've never seen the Dems reaching for the hand of Lyndon and the LaRouchies.

No, Ron Paul refuses to endorse his party's nominee and in rhetoric at least, seems ready to go the Bob Barr route and leave the party, and he'd do it if he did not have a reelection to win.

If anyone will be crashing this little party, let me know.

Posted in 2008 | Republican National Convention | Ron Paul — Comments (44)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:44am on Jun. 2, 2008 McCain organization passing tests in state and local GOP conventions

By Soren Dayton

This weekend, there were Republican conventions in 8 states. According to Jonathan Martin, Ron Paul supporters are "blitz"ing these conventions:

There are quite a few state GOP conventions this weekend, and reading through the coverage online one finds a recurring theme: the Paul presence.

The libertarian Republican's hardy band of supporters are showing up at conventions in an effort to win a delegate slot in the Twin Cities in September.  

Paul backers have achieved some small success in becoming delegates, but their larger impact has been to offer an element of news at what are largely newsless and ceremonial state party confabs.

My sources indicate that of the 430 delegate or alternate spots available this weekend, Paul supporters won 11. (Read the Washington State account here) Martin, like many other analysts, suggests that this whole phenomenon is bad news for John McCain. I disagree. Read on.

Posted in 2008 | GOP | John McCain | RNC Delegates | Ron Paul — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:29am on Apr. 5, 2008 Ron Paul Finally Endorses

On a day we honor WFB's memory, let us carry on his work

By Neil Stevens

After all this time, and all the anticipation, Ron Paul has finally made peace with his compatriots, and made his endorsement.

What's that? John McCain? Oh my, no. Ron Paul is still running for President, and trying to steal other candidates' pledged delegates. Even though he's perfectly happy to take the endorsement of a party his campaign claims is not "viable" (ibid.), he won't step up and acknowledge the victory of the man who earned enough pledged delegates to assure a first ballot GOP victory, and who will be leading us to November.

No, Ron Paul won't endorse the man who has earned the endorsement of the Republican Party's voters, but he will and has endorsed the John Birch Society. Yes, that John Birch Society. The one that accused President Eisenhower of being a Communist. The one that William F. Buckley, whom many of us remember today, rightly threw out of the conservative movement.

Ron Paul endorsed them, and removed all doubt of his position with respect to the conservative movement.

Read on...

Posted in 2008 | Ron Paul | The John Birch Society | Tin Foil As Fashion and Inflation Hedge | William F. Buckley Jr. — Comments (67)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:45pm on Mar. 19, 2008 Paul to GOP: Why don't you Neocon Constitution-haters like me?

Is it the hat? Or the McCain bashing?

By Neil Stevens

Representative Ron Paul, Republican nominee for Congress in Texas district 14, believes there is a 'New Right' conspiracy against him in the GOP.

Despite the fact that he shifted effort from his Presidential campaign to ensure he beat the mainstream Republican, Chris Peden, in the Texas 14 primary, and that he still has neither endorsed John McCain for President nor even acknowledged that he needs to work with McCain to ensure Republican victory in November, Paul thinks the burden is on the party to come to him.

Read on...

Posted in 2008 | John McCain | Republicans | Ron Paul | Texas | Texas 14 | The International Neocon Conspiracy — Comments (26)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:36pm on Jan. 28, 2008 National Review's brand drops another notch

By Neil Stevens

John Derbyshire is raising money for Ron Paul at The Corner. I'm disappointed. We all know Ron Paul is opposed to Goldwater Republicanism, but once upon a time NR was a Goldwater Republican organization. If NRO continues to allow Derbyshire to shill for Ron Paul on their site, it shows that they truly have diverged from their proud traditions.

Posted at 9:27pm on Jan. 23, 2008 Ideas Don't Run For President; People Do

A Timeless Truth. Repeat As Often As Needed.

By Dan McLaughlin

With the failure of the Fred Thompson campaign, there has been predictable and understandable wailing and gnashing of teeth in conservative quarters about the state of the GOP and what this all means for the future of conservative ideas. Fred ran as a full-scale, across-the-board movement conservative, and he went nowhere. Among the four remaining major candidates, we have two who are genuine conservatives on some core issues but basically apostates on others (Rudy and Huck), a moderate who is generally if not as dramatically out of step on a large number of issues (McCain), and one candidate (Romney) whose positions have changed so much from his past positions and record that nobody really knows for certain how trustworthy he might be if he actually won the general election. Conservatives are asking: has our party abandoned us? Have GOP voters rejected our ideas?

No, it has not, and they have not. Remember Article II, Section 1 of our Constitution: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." President, singular, individual. Flesh-and-blood human. That's who holds the job, that's who gets elected to the job. No perfect vessel, no incarnation of ideas. And that fact must be repeated again and again until people understand that winning and losing elections and choosing leaders is about picking the right person from the available choices. Ideas don't run for president, people do.

We got the field we started with because these were the men who were willing to ask for the job and able to raise the minimum amount of money and signatures and staff to initiate a campaign. That limited our options to the people who had - or thought they had - the qualifications and the right political moment to run in 2008, not some other year. We got the field we have now because along the way, some of the contenders failed to promote themselves well, or made a bad impression, or ran out of money, or found better things to do with their time. That leaves the four men who remain, plus of course Ron Paul. We have no choice but to take each them as a whole - platform and record, experience and character, skills and resources. And it is just one of those remaining men, as a whole, with whom we will go forth to battle in November.

An awful lot of angst could be avoided by remembering this simple truth. And an awful lot can yet be spared if the folks who live in this big and querelous tent we call a political party - which we would all like and hope to see function as a majority party - would remind themselves of it: we have been asked to choose among men, not ideas. While our choices certainly reflect our view of the ideas each man champions, it is deeply mistaken to read the choice of one man over another as the final and definitive statement of what ideas we truly support. I, for one, as a Republican would like to know that the candidate we settle on - or settle for - has more people behind him than just the ones who agree with every one of his ideas.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | conservatism | Fred Thompson | Libertarians | Ron Paul | Schism — Comments (54)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:34am on Jan. 16, 2008 True test of a candidate: Can you convince 55% of voters to support you if given no other choice?

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

The votes have all been counted and the dust is beginning to settle.  And as far as the left is concerned it's time to let the spin begin!  As you read your local paper today expect to find stories about an exultant Hillary Clinton, thrilled Hillary supporters and activists and her momentum heading into South Carolina and the casino-caucuses in Nevada.  Remember that the Clinton machine is one built upon an almost other-worldly (apologies to Dem hero Denny Kucinich) ability to spin (no, I don't mean like a UFO).  But as you read all of that don't jump too quickly over the reports of the final voting tallies.

Posted in Barack Obama | Bob Dole | Breaking News | Fred Thompson | Hillary Clinton | Michigan | Primary | Robert Dean | Ron Paul — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:32am on Jan. 15, 2008 Could Clinton win 80% of the vote without locking in a single delegate? YES!

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Today is the day... did you vote yet?  Then what are you sitting around reading a blog for?  Go.  Vote.  Forthwith.  Then come back.  I'll wait...

~twiddling thumbs~

~whistling~

~pacing room~

~looking at wrist pretending there's a watch there~

Back?  Awesome.  You may have been one of the first to vote today but you certainly won't be the last.  Early projections vary but all expect the primary election to draw around 1.5 million people.  That's about a 20% voter turnout when you do the math.  In 2000, the last time the State had a presidential primary we drew about 1.4 million so you can do the math on that one.  Of course back then there was only a GOP contest.  And as a group of lawmakers from metro-Detroit continue to point out in the press and via advertising and a grassroots ground game, there is very much a Democrat contest this year as well.

Posted in Archived | Barack | Fred Thompson | Hillary | John Edwards | John McCai | Michigan | POTUS | Primary | Romney | Ron Paul — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:37pm on Jan. 14, 2008 "Most of these people are not rational."

The Ron Paul Revolution comes to New Hampshire

By Neil Stevens

Original link via Ace of Spades HQ...

For the last eight years, the Democratic left has claimed that voting machines are the tools of electoral fraud in America. They claimed that the efficiency that makes them useful also makes them unreliable. However, a lack of efficiency also has a cost, unfortunately a personal one.

Read on...

Posted in 2008 | Brownshirts | DSM IV | New Hampshire | Political Intimidation | Ron Paul | Twelve Letter Profanities — Comments (42)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:50am on Jan. 14, 2008 Michigan's favorite Democrat Bill Milliken makes his GOP "endorsement"

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

T-Minus 1 day and counting.  At this point just about every Republican in the State has made up his or her mind about who deserves that coveted vote at the ballot box tomorrow and the weekend was full of forecasts and predictions from the press, campaign stops and speeches about Michigan issues by Republicans and crickets chirping from the Democrats.  And all of that will continue today.

Mitt Romney, John McCain and Mike Huckabee will be out and about asking for your vote again today and the MSM will keep calling you to ask who you've decided to vote for.  Oh, right, and the Democrats will keep ignoring you, their own party members, undecided voters, young voters and struggling Michigan families because some fat-cat party bosses chomping on cigars in a cloak room on Capitol Hill told them to.  Sorry, sometimes I forget about them.  

Frankly, I'm starting to wonder if they really exist.  I mean, Hillary Clinton, OK.  I'll buy that.  I remember her as the First Lady back in the 90s but this Barack Obama cat?  I've been listening to the liberal media and as best as I can gather he's some sort of genetic experiment that came about when Al Gore invented a machine to mix the DNA of Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Ghandi, FDR and the Hindu god Vishnu.  Yes, he's THAT amazing.  

Read on . . .

Posted in 2008 | Bill Milliken | Bob Menendez | Hillary Clinton | January 15 | Michigan | POTUS | Primary | Ron Paul | Senili — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:00pm on Jan. 10, 2008 "Leave Ron Paul Alone"

By Ace of Spades

Please welcome Ace O'Spades to RedState. -JE

Stolen from the Jawa scavengers off a tip from Junkyard Blog.

I really don't get it. I liked George W. Bush quite a bit when I voted for him in 2000 and 2004. I did. Seriously.

I know people hold Ronald Reagan in rather high esteem.

But I have never in my life witnessed the sort of zealotry that attaches some to Ron Paul.

Can anyone explain this to me? Why have so many otherwise sane-seeming people gone completely bug**** crazy over this flake?

I wasn't just tossing a cheap joke into the last post. Seriously, honestly: Let us put aside indelicate questions about Ron Paul's possible anti-semitism, racism, etc. Just let's leave that be for a moment.

Can Ron Paul's defenders please justify voting for a man who appears, based on the evidence, to be mentally unstable and haunted by a livable and low-grade, but quite real, case of paranoid schizophrenia?

If Art Bell told you he really had some great ideas about cutting the federal bureaucracy and returning to "constitutional governance," would you guys all flock to him, too?

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | celebrity guest bloggers | Ron Paul — Comments (87) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:38am on Jan. 10, 2008 GOP Candidates barnstorm Michigan (despite what the FREEP says) while "Uncommited" surges

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com

Remember a couple of days ago when the Ivory Tower told everyone in the State that Republican Presidential candidates just plain weren't going to be campaigning in Michigan following Tuesday's New Hampshire primary?  Yeah, about that... the Detroit News reports this morning on a full day of Michigan campaigning for several candidates yesterday:

Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Fred Thompson | Hillary Clinton | Michigan | POTUS | Primary | Ron Paul — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:58pm on Jan. 8, 2008 "Angry White Man"

By AcademicElephant

If by any chance you need about 1,000 more reasons not to support Ron Paul this primary season, read James Kirchick's latest on The New Republic. Kirchick actually did his own documentary research on this one. An excerpt:

...the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

Posted at 6:59pm on Jan. 5, 2008 Wyoming Caucus Early Results: Romney 6, Fred 1, Hunter 1 [Updated Final: Romney 8, Fred 3, Hunter 1]

Ron Paul 0. Nobody else campaigned there.

By Dan McLaughlin

As I expected, Mitt Romney wins today's Wyoming caucus, beating back a late effort by Fred Thompson - note that these are not final results (caucuses closed at 5pm EST):

Mitt Romney captured his first win of the Republican presidential race, gaining most of Wyoming's delegates at stake in GOP caucuses on Saturday.

The former Massachusetts governor won six of the first eight delegates to be selected. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and California Rep. Duncan Hunter won one apiece, meaning no other candidate could beat Romney. Caucuses were still being held to decide all 12 delegates at stake.

The win was a boost for Romney, coming two days after his loss to Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses and three days before the first-in-the- nation primary in New Hampshire. Those two states have attracted most of the political attention. Wyoming had scheduled its GOP county conventions earlier to attract candidates to the state but had only modest results.

Romney visited Wyoming in August and November and three of his five sons campaigned in the state. One son, Josh Romney, owns a ranch in southwest Wyoming.

"Number one, he campaigned here," delegate Leigh Vosler of Cheyenne said of Romney. "I think that helped while some other candidates ignored us. But also he's the right person for the job."

Hunter, Thompson and Ron Paul all stopped by the state—visits they probably wouldn't have made except for this year's early conventions—and candidates have sent Wyoming's GOP voters a flood of campaign mail. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, did not visit Wyoming and drew little support. Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also did not visit and received little support.

H/T.

UPDATE: CNN reports now 8 of the 12 delegates for Romney, 2 for Fred and 1 for Hunter, with 91% reporting.

UPDATED AGAIN: Final: Romney 8, Fred 3, Hunter 1.

Posted in 2008 | Duncan Hunter | Fred Thompson | Mitt Romney | Ron Paul | Wyoming — Comments (28)/ Email this page » / Read More »