Ron Paul is the Ralph Nader of the Right

For the second year in a row Texas Congressman Ron Paul has won the CPAC Presidential Straw Poll. You know what really scares me though? Mitt Romney came in second. It's a twofer of stupidity. (Via Memeorandum)

Doug Ross deconstructs the Ron Paul Narrative. Not that any of his earnest young acolytes would ever bother to read it. The Paulestinians are True Believers, and woe unto him who dareth to contradict their Lord and Master, even if the Gospel According to Ron Paul means you sorta, kinda have to endorse the White Supremacists at Stormfront, not to mention the 9/11 Truthers. The Crazy Train definitely stops at Paulville.

I'd say it was akin to Obama-worship, except you know, when Donald Trump has to whack you with a clue-by-four you're pretty much in break-out-the-insanity-defense territory already.

So yeah, Ron Paul is nuts. There, I said it. And put it on the Internet.

But before you go talking about "victories" at CPAC, take a gander at Doug Ross's charts. The Ronulans mustered 30% of the vote, which does indeed sound impressive. Until you see that just over 3,000 votes were cast in total. Now here's the thing, close to 12,000 people attended CPAC this year. So Ron Paul managed to energize just under a third of one quarter of the attendees. For those of you who are weak at math it equates to a 1/12 approval rating among committed, motivated conservatives.

Barry polls better than that. Yes, even among the sane.

Here's the truth. Ron Paul is the Ralph Nader of the right-wing set. He's so far out there we need a map and a compass just to locate the timezone where he was last spotted. Like Nader he's a master at exploiting a loyal following for his own self-aggrandizement. I guess he gets a rush out of poking a stick in the eye of every candidate who actually has a snowball's chance in Hell of being elected to the presidency.

Does Ron Paul have a roll to play? Perhaps. I'd say he could be a servicable Secretary of the Treasury, except his unfettered support for the whole return to the gold standard nonsense scares the daylights out of me. You wanna destroy the US economy? Just replace the greenback as the world reserve currency. Which of course is precisely what returning to the gold standard would do.

Which isn't to say that Paul's "audit the Fed" idea is without merit. But then, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Which come to think of it is the perfect metaphor for Ron Paul. He's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Posted at 21:58 by Chris Wysocki   [/election]   Comments | Perm Link |
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