In short, he should have been vetted and then marginalized.
Just consider the current uproar over the racist political newsletters that were sent out under Paul’s name (and used to fund his political activities) in the early 1990s. The story is hardly new, but to many voters it feels new because — like Paul himself — it’s been ignored by the press all year.
This is a perk of being dismissed by the press as a fringe figure. In 1996, when he made his comeback bid for a House seat in Texas, Paul briefly had to confront the newsletters, but once he was elected and became an entrenched incumbent, the issue was largely dropped by the local press (old news) and ignored by the national media, who saw him as just a gadfly backbencher. And when he ran for president in 2008, it didn’t come up until very late in the cycle, when some staggering fundraising numbers briefly compelled the political world to notice him. But almost as soon as it exploded back then, the story went away, with the media regarding Paul’s relatively weak early primary showings as proof that his base of support was very loud and very narrow and that he wasn’t worth taking seriously.
And that, more or less, was how the media treated Paul’s current campaign until the past few weeks.
Paul shouldn't have been elected to the House, let alone be taken seriously at all as a presidential candidate. He should have had just as much chance of being president as yours truly.
2 comments:
Ron Paul is a fool and his followers are worse. I had a chance to talk with many of them at Zuccotti Park during the occupation and they are completely brainwashed. They take the idea that the government has no place in anything as an article of faith. When you ask them why, they have nothing. I am all for calm discussion with people who think different from me. I had many pleasant debates at Occupy. But there is no discussion with the Ron Paul crowd.
And I will just come out and say it: most of the ones I met were anti-Semites and racists. It came out in some cases but in most it was always seething under the surface. Very scary to think that people are so easily brainwashed.
I have a brother who is a big fan of his, and he isn't a racist as far as I can tell. I think he has been brainwashed through Fox News, Lew Rockwell, and so forth to believe the nonsense which is against his own self-interest.
The Paul supporters are followers of a cult.
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