Ron Paul scales back hopeless effort, refuses to back McCain

He's not really quitting. He's not really suspending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He's not promising victory, just to keep on keeping on. But, in effect, Rep. Ron Paul, at 72 the oldest candidate for president and the only GOP candidate to oppose the Iraq war, is facing reality.

In a statement to supporters on his website, first mentioned here early Saturday, Paul admits, "With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get." In a new 14-minute campaign video, Paul says he wants to clarify some confusion

His campaign currently claims a total of 42, 1,149 shy of the total to win and some 650 behind the GOP leader, though other estimates give him only 16. He took third in Washington over the weekend and fourth in Kansas behind even Mitt Romney, who'd dropped out. Even if he won every delegate still available, Paul could not capture the party's nomination in September in St. Paul, which is no relation.

Despite ridicule by other GOP candidates, despite getting significantly less time to speak during debates and, in one instance, even being barred from a GOP debate by Fox News although....

he'd collected more votes than those included, Paul repeated his vow not to attempt a third-party bid, which would drain priceless conservative votes from the party's nominee. "I am a Republican," he said, "and I remain a Republican." He did say he'd be reducing staff and offices.

Now, whether the 10-term congressman with the libertarian ideals, actually endorses Sen. John McCain is something else. Paul has said we should bring overseas troops home and invest the saved money in fixing America; McCain has vowed to stay overseas, especially Iraq, as long as it takes for success.

This morning Paul told one of our sister newspapers, "I cannot support anybody with the foreign policy he advocates, you know, perpetual war," said Paul. "That is just so disturbing to me."

In his website statement, Paul then alludes to probably the largest factor for his refocused campaign: He's trying to run simultaneously for president and his House seat in Texas' 14th Congressional District and faces a challenger in the March 4 primary, Chris Peden, a city councilmen from Friendswood. So Paul will be on two ballots that day.

"If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat," he said, "all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen." In a new 14-minute campaign video, Paul says he needs to clarify confusion over his dropping out, that he is just altering his schedule to allow primary campaigning in his home district and he intends to compete fully in all remaining primaries and on to the convention.

Although largely ignored as irrelevant by many media outlets, though not The Ticket, the story of Ron Paul and his thousands of determined, sometimes aggressive, usually good-natured followers is one of the more interesting of the current election season.

Virtually spontaneously, disaffected Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and newcomers to the political process began gathering around the plain-spoken Paul last summer and with their nearly $20 million in smaller donations turned him into the most successful GOP fundraiser in the last quarter. On one day he raised $6 million online and was the only Republican to increase his contributions in every quarter of 2007.

With some 1,400 meet-up groups across the country, letter-writing and sign-waving campaigns and creative publicity stunts, they helped Paul to some second, fourth and fifth place finishes in states such as Nevada, Montana and Maine. He beat Rudy Giuliani in Iowa and Fred Thompson in New Hampshire and financed an eight-state advertising campaign.

His boosters, who worked the Internet assiduously to right wrongs and make Paul's case, maintain that a corporate-media conspiracy to ignore him prevented the former ob-gyn from getting his less-government message out to most Americans. He certainly was ignored and, only recently, included when providing poll results on TV. But additionally, his strict constitutionalist ideas for reducing the federal government and abolishing the IRS and Federal Reserve Bank and returning to the gold standard may be just too radical for a country today facing international terrorist threats and the current economic uncertainty.

Even the tone of hundreds of comments left here by Paul supporters changed in recent days from aggressive advocacy to reluctant acceptance of the disappointing reality of continued single-digit poll results.

It would be interesting if those supporters took the time here now to leave comments explaining why they think Paul never caught on to a wider audience (we already know about the media conspiracy) and what they think about his refocused campaign and their spent donations.

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Erik]

I supported Ron Paul for two primary reasons:

fiscal/monetary policy
foreign policy

Until Barack Obama starts to mention inflation, the dollar, the Federal Reserve's role, the govt debt, I will continue to support Ron Paul first.

I would rather have a pro-life country (I'm pro-choice) and a sound fiscal/monetary/foreign policy than the reverse. Americans are missing the fact that fiscal/monetary policy and foreign policy are BY FAR the two most crucial factors going forward. Alas, just as every other empire has done, we will react instead of acting in advance, and we will reap what we have sown...

[George]

OK Malcom -
__________
"But additionally, his strict constitutionalist ideas for reducing the federal government and abolishing the IRS and Federal Reserve Bank and returning to the gold standard may be just too radical for a country today facing international terrorist threats and the current economic uncertainty".
__________

As Dr Evil states - "You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

The international terroist threats and economic uncertainly are precisely WHY Ron Paul advocates reducing the federal government, abolishing the Federal Reserve and it's "interest-payment" support mechanism of income taxes, and a return to the Gold Standard.

Today, the Federal government must continue to find reasons to borrow from the Federal Reserve (a private bank), through growth in government entitlements and foreign militariism, to keep the fiat dollar afloat ($70 Trillion in debt and counting). But why would "elect me!" politicians, and central bankers want this changed?

We can never repay this debt without returning to a sound currency and stopping entitlements.

The government can only pay the interest on these phony "loans", through income taxes, making every American man/woman/child a perpetual serf, until our economic system collapses, since our currency is not pinned to anything of real value (e.g. Gold Std).

However, the rest of the global marketplace isn't so duped - watch the price of gold, as (unfortunately) the fiat dollar continues to tank!

____________
"It would be interesting if those supporters took the time here now to leave comments explaining why they think Paul never caught on to a wider audience (we already know about the media conspiracy) and what they think about his refocused campaign and their spent donations."
____________

1) American citizens are duped sheep. The perpetuation of this ignorance by the major media, serves those already in government, and the media outlets owned by a small minority.
2) He HAS caught on to a wider audience (but not to the sheep).
3) Correct - you DO know about the media conspiracy, and LA Times is part of it ("...reluctant acceptance of the disappointing reality...). Your glee fill your pen.
4) Spent donations - Ron Paul's donors represent true idealists - not supporters of the "big-corporation" political duopoly designed by McCain-Feingold's treacherous destruction of American free speech.

As our economic woes continue (and with the likely Demopublican President) they will, we may yet see, before it's too late, that Dr Paul represents true insight into saving America

[Mike]

He hasn't reached a wider audience because of the media bias you acknowledge.

He also suffers from preaching a philosophy of individual liberty...
Not a, "What can the government do for ME?!?" with a complete disregard for personal responsibility - or care about the cost to your neighbor.

Ron Paul has not lost.
He has started a movement that will surpass him in every way possible.

The Alaska GOP platform has been changed - because of Ron Paul delegates speaking out - to support industrial hemp and Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy.

You're also misquoting the results in Washington - as you are calculating the pre-caucus "straw-poll" equivalent votes.

The undecided delegates are expected to be strong Paul supporters trying to get into the system under the radar of the state GOP - as they were blocked at every corner in Louisiana and suffered losses due to what most consider fraud - where McCain ran on 2 ballots - the "Uncommitted Pro Life/Pro-Family" and his own.

The thing is, Giuliani was on the pro-life/pro-family ticket.
So I don't understand how pro-life or family it could possibly be.

McCain didn't win Louisiana on his own.
The GOP broke the law and changed the caucus rules at the last minute to disenfranchise Paul's supporters who switched from other parties - or were newly registered supporters.

The reason he isn't catching on is because the GOP is united against him - and is using deceit and voter disenfranchisement to keep his numbers down.

44% of the people voting for McCain in New Hampshire believed he was against the war.

The media hasn't been honest - and the people haven't looked for facts on their own - and this article is another show of force against Paul and his campaign.

He did not call it quits - and is still hoping for a brokered convention.

With Romney's delegates still in the air (and Paul's 2nd place finishes in NV and MT - both Winner Take All states - he could have all those delegates if they drop the delegates to the 2nd place winner - after Romney drops out) it is possible for Paul to seize them and still succeed.

But you can't help planting the seeds of failure... Ensuring that those free to still cast their votes do not - for fear of wasting their votes.

It still comes down to the media.
It always will.

From day one Paul has been labeled as a "long shot" and a "dark horse" candidate... With no hope of winning.

Yet he's already won - financially...
He's already won in grass root support...
He's already won in creativity of his supporters...

And now he's winning - because his delegates are changing the Republican platform at the state levels so that McCain cannot be a part of their republican platform.

The revolution is just beginning.
And if the media refuses to acknowledge it, the revolution will be the media's undoing.

[Kevin Beyer]

It would be interesting for me to explain why people didn't vote for someone they NEVER heard of and knew NOTHING about. Sorry Andrew Malcom...it's THE MEDIA'S FAULT!!!!!!!!!
Give my regards to Anderson Cooper

[John Haigh]

It is a little difficult to explain Dr Ron Paul's poor showing in the primaries without referencing the mainstream media blackout and the mandatory "fringe" or "long shot" tags in the early days when he got occasional coverage.

My guess is that only quite a small percentage of Americans ever got to consider his message; and that it was quite often accepted by those that did.

I would be very interested in the results of an unbiased national poll that asked, "Who is Ron Paul?" and if they answered correctly that he is a Republican presidential candidate, asked a series of True or False questions about his platform.

OK. The first battle for the presidential nomination seems lost. But I have some hope that a decent number of the Ron Paul Revolutionaries will battle on and win later.

America and the rest of the World would be happier, richer, safer places if his message took root.

I still dream about a world where American foreign policy is framed with respect for the concept of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

The vast majority of Americans I meet are friendly, generous, energetic and fair minded. How do they let their foreign policy get shaped by such vicious evil men?

The rest of the world regards America as a bully. And, if a bully doesn't stop bullying, most people want to see him lose his power.

I'm sad to say I saw a lot of smiling faces on 9/11. The people were sad for the innocent individuals killed and injured, but were very glad to see a bully get a bloody nose.

[impassion]

The author stated... "his strict constitutionalist ideas for reducing the federal government and abolishing the IRS and Federal Reserve Bank and returning to the gold standard may be just too radical for a country today facing international terrorist threats and the current economic uncertainty."

The radical principle here is the opposition to such an approach by Dr. Paul. Should the US continue it's feeble attempts at boxing ghosts around the world, selling debt to China and Japan, and outsourcing production, it will shore out it's own foundation.

How obvious it is in what is being 'un'accomplished with the current approach to coach the world to our liking. It is aggravating to other sovereign countries, extraordinarily expensive, and all of us patriotic citizens must continue to push 15 to 30 percent of our salaries so that this madness can continue until our grandchildren berate us for our inane malinvestment.

Funding war that begets war is an endless proposition, and with the almost 10 trillion in foreign debt owed (almost 1 trillion a year), the dollar through inflation may lose its reserve currency status in the world as more money is printed to try to prevent the invevitable.

And so, we will elect a soap opera president to fix it.
Pretty sad, but not unexpected from those who do not pay attention.

[james]

Dr. Paul was deliberately shunned by a the corporate owned media. The media owners have their own agenda. It is not the interests of the People. So, those into the internet get the other side of the story. The majority of the population chooses to get information from the media and so are dumbed down to the level of media programming. That's what got us into this war. The public just doesn't get it and so will get the best president money can buy, whether it is a Democrat or a non-Paul Republican. You can call either of them Republicrats.

[Curt]

Andrew,

Thanks for supporting Paul. I think that Paul's, and any such future campaign, is now doomed from the outset.

Firstly, Americans are afraid to leave the nanny state no matter how much in-fighting it foments,

Secondly, warmongering and imperial interests seem to have acheived their coup-de-etat. I have become utterly cynical and paranoid. I've been following politics all my 55 years and am convinced that the 'fix' is in. I've never seen such nonsense. The existing democratic congress has blatantly betrayed their constituency. Celebrity worshipping Brittany-bots seem to have carried the day and now Obama will either get shredded in the general or be a weak president willing to go along with the crap to have his moment in history. Who am I to judge, I've sold out for less. Kids still starve in the world and I've got a roof over my head.

I find it all very sad. We haven't hit rock botom yet, and now rock bottom will be much bloodier. Karma for our sins? I hope the Indians have a good laugh after we're gone.

Thanks again.

[Tony Angel]

The majority of people are sheople, happy with their ever increasing debt that if they really give it much thought hope they will escape by death anyway.

We have been brought up to be good consumers and keep the cycle going.
Our parents were frugal when they saw their neighbours get laid off, and never had the opportunity to get into so much debt so easily....
So inflation is our friend when it comes to debt and the pundits say we gotta keep going they way we are cause it's best for all....

I don't care about the moneys already spent. what was, is.

But for the refocused campaign...
Take a look at the movie idiocracy and come up with a Faux News Monster Truck Show with Ron Paul as Host screaming down everyone else and running over all his opponents in The Biggest Motha Truck Ever Concieved By Man Or Beast, One show every 3 days with lotsa teasers permanently running on all affiliated channels and magazine covers etc etc
And that's about the only way to get the sheople behind you.

[blakmira]

Oh, Andrew. Really. "never caught on to a wider audience?"??

8,500 people showed up to hear Dr. Paul speak in Virginia this weekend at the Liberty University; nearly 5,000 showed up at the University of Minnesota last week. What other candidate with a "wider audience" do you know that can raise over $6 million in one day?

You will have no REAL idea just how many of us there are until we show up to march for Ron Paul in Washington in a couple of months (per his own suggestion in his latest message video), which we are now in the stages of planning! No way is he quitting and neither or we!

Of course, Ron Paul and his supporters realize the overwhelming amount of VOTE COUNT FRAUD going on; if it wasn't so sad it would be a joke. Some of us are trying to get our states to decertify the electronic voting machines, but it's all part of the corruption and predetermined winners.

[TheFightGoesOn]

A message from Ron Paul from yesterday:

Ron Paul : Going the Distance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMliyeIDp4

You see guys, there's more to Ron Paul's candidacy than a wish to be president or a grasp for power and influence.

Ron Paul and supporters are fighting for the liberty of us all. You jaded and cynical journos might think it's all idealistic nonsense but have you honestly looked into Ron Paul's message and done your research? Have you read his books? Do you really understand what he's saying? Have you tried to counter his arguments intelligently or do you just take cheap shots at his supporters?

You political journos are supposed to know and understand the positions of all of the candidates in depth but the mainstream media just seems to cluelessly follow the herd and report the latest poll numbers. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

[Web Smith]

What you don't seem to be able to realize, Andrew, is that we have already won. We continue to win more every day.

We have exceeded our expectations and everything else that we gain is icing on the cake. The money keeps coming in and the number of supporters continues to grow. We continue to educate more people every day. Have you compared the poll results to the actual voting results in the caucuses and primaries? We won.

There is nothing radical about Ron Paul's objectives. The continued presence of the Federal Reserve as the result of an act as opposed to an Amendment is unconstitutional. The 16th Amendment, which may or may not have been ratified, is in question and was created contrary to the Constitution by a Congress that wanted to spend money which is what has gotten us to the point we are at today..

I took the following oath about 40 years ago:

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

While my service commitments have been fulfilled, there is no expiration date on the oath. Men and women entering the military or public service in the Senate, Congress, or Presidential office, take this oath today. While the Senate, Congress, and the President ignore the oath that they took, the ones who actually fight for your freedoms do not. If you had taken the oath, you would know what we mean. There is nothing radical about it. It is a dear to us as the word of God.

We include more soldiers in our ranks than all of the other candidates put together. The noise leading up to the primaries and caucuses was called for in the face of media exclusion. We are settling in for the long haul now. The longer the battle rages, the more we will win.

Do not begin to think, for one moment, that we have gone away. If you, like many others, misinterpreted Ron's words and commitment, view his latest message here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMliyeIDp4

[James]

I never thought Paul had much of a chance in 2008. But this isn't about him, it's about a free society, something we continue to move away from. Hillary wants to force people to buy insurance. Yes it's a problem but force? Neo-Conservatives want to force our democratic ideals on people who may not appreciate them. How many democratic nations has our CIA undermined for our financial interests and those of our allies? Paul is about freedom not force. The lefts think we can be a Sweden or Norway but they do not realize this sort of socialism will fail in our culture and will not tolerate our tradition of immigration and letting people build their own lives. It's about not hitting rock bottom before we make real change. Paul wants true conservatism, not quasi-liberalism. If McCain wins (In November) the GOP will become a centerish party (and will probably fail). If the Democrats win we will become more indebted. We no longer produce wealth, the rest of the world is slowly buying us. The communist party in China exercises more control over our economy than our own government. Oh well, Free enterprise is over rated I guess.

(Thanks for taking the time leave a thoughtful comment.)

[Galen]

First of all Ron Pauls ideas have not been made public by the mainstream media as you fairly mentioned. That is the number one reason for Ron Pauls ideas not catching on with the publid. Then when Ron Paul did get media attention it was always loaded questions or someone on the attack. Ron Pauls Ideas are that of the founding forefathers that made this nation so great. This nation is quickly losing that and moving towards a mixture of fascism and socialism. The council on foreign relations controlled media and political candidates scratch each others backs and many are waking up to this fact.
Ron Paul would be the president of the United States if the media did not slander and black him out both. How can we tell you what caused Ron Paul to not catch on without telling you the truth ?
Ron Pauls ideas of less tax, smaller governmnet, no preemptive wars , no fascist patriot act, no North American Union , stoping illegal immigration, and obeying the constitution are actually very popular and very much what a Republic like the United States is about. But Im sure the mainstream propagnada machine known as the mainstream media will not tell anyone that.

[joe martell]

The rEVOLution has just begun! The biggest march in history is soon to come on Washington.

[Tim]

No. It isn't the media. They didn't give him a fair share, for sure, but they did give him just enough airtime to get his message through edgewise. Anyone with at least one ear who was in a room during the several debates got the flavor of his platform.

People just aren't attuned to his sort of platform. I think people are just so hypnotized by the allure of the welfare-warfare state that they can't imagine life without it.

Well, maybe it is the media. The main failure of the media is that it doesn't do a very good job of reporting on our unsustainable government fiscal policy. When I heard that Congress recently raised the debt ceiling--for the fifth time since Bush took office--to over $9 trillion, I had a Dickens of a time finding the story reported on a reputable news source. Nobody was outraged. Nobody even cared. 60 Minutes did a report on David Walker's Fiscal Wake up tour, but is anyone really following this? Why is it that every time Britney Spears blows her nose, I get a full report, but when America's Comptroller General is on tour trying to tell the American People that our government is spending itself into oblivion, nobody cares? And here our Commander-in-Chief, an alleged 'conservative' has proposed another budget with yet another record-breaking deficit. Where is the outrage?

This is why Ron Paul didn't win. The American people are sleeping. They are hypnotized. The nanny State has lulled them into a false sense of security that things can just keep going the way they have been. It will take an economic catastrophe to wake them up.

[Ned Leiba]

First, I want to thank you for your excellent reporting and reflections. I am very grateful for your column and coverage.

It’s probably a very long road for someone like Ron Paul to travel before he will enjoy wide popularity. The popularity of Obama, Clinton, McClain and Huckabee is built on weakly held beliefs of many folks. The Paul supporters are very committed, very focused. They have strongly held beliefs. Weakly held beliefs are rather easy to change and influence, and they are widely held. Strong beliefs take sometime to acquire. The gestation period is longer. There must be big changes in outlook for the average voter to embrace Ron Paul. It’s pretty easy to go along with chronic status quo.

Folks want the security of big government, and they are scared. In deed, big government is built on crisis or at least the image of crises. In the shadow of crises or desperate need, general principles give way to the promise of security, or relief from economic risk and downturn.

So Dr. Paul received fewer vote than hoped because he offers a difficult message for folks to swallow.

Also, perhaps Dr. Paul does not have the booming, articulate voice and style of his professionally polished competitors. I find his manner very appealing. Paul’s speeches and comments are content laden.

In contrast, the speeches of Obama, Clinton, McClain and Huckabee all project a magnificence, although I think they amount to a rather sad magnificence. I see the continuation of chronic problems, erosion of adherence to principles of a free and liberal society, the growth of petty and acute tyrannies and a war economy we cannot afford. But, they are very good orators. They could probably make a decent living in the wasteland of TV.

With other supporter of Dr. Paul, I hope and work for a change, and I will not be deterred. Its rather heartening to see so many others similarly determined - folks who care deeply and will work for a better nation.

Finally, I hope the supporters of Dr. Paul don’t get too exuberant or become nasty irritants to the press or other politicians. The lamentable drift in America is not the result of evil people hatching evil plots. We should keep our good humor, goodwill, perspective and humility.

Thanks again for your coverage and, dare I say, your concern.

[Sally]

MAJOR ELECTION UPDATE!

Just released Ron Paul video - he wants a March on Washington!

http://people.ronpaul2008.com/campaign-updates

The video is already on Pat Buchanan's blog, as well: http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=944

And a great Lew Rockwell article about Ron Paul was just posted, as well:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/rp-meaning.html

[Rolland]

What we (Ron Paul supporters) can do is very simple: Vote for the Libertarian candidate in the general election.

If Paul supporters vote Libertarian and the candidate wins 10-15% of the vote, I can guarantee that it will get notice. Even though the Libertarian candidate will probably not be Ron Paul, it will be apparent exactly where this support is coming from.

Is Ron Paul's stand on the issue much different from the Libertarian Party's stands (http://www.lp.org/issues/issues.shtml)? Some differences, but not that substantial.

Your other other choice is to play the game MSM and the power elites have orchestrated, and that is, vote for the lessor of two evils, of which, there is no fundamental difference between the two.

The choice is yours: carry the rEVOLution forward, or continue to play a losing game and waste your vote on someone that doesn't share your beliefs.

[sean truitt]

andrew, i have to know. do you believe that there is a media brown-out exclusively against ron paul? why or why not?

thank you.

(Thanks for your comment, Sean. I have to agree with Patrick just above or below here. There is no organized conspiracy in the media. That would be impossible, frankly, because of competition and especially now the internet and your many alternate choices of information, such as this blog, which has written often about Dr. Paul. Also, news coverage is built around "news," something happening, something new. For instance, when the campaign had that record-breaking money bomb in November, how was it released? In a news release at Sunday midnight on the website. Nobody would ever see that, except us because we were waiting for it. So we did an item. But imagine if there had been a pre-announced news conference the next day at noon with Dr. Paul himself receiving a giant $6 million check from his finance chairman for all the TV cameras to see. There's a show biz element to getting your ideas across in a competititve marketplace these days. Also, Dr. Paul never won anything meaningful; straw polls don't count for anything. As Patrick points out, notice how Huckabee's coverage jumped after he won Iowa.)

[Patrick]

As someone working in the "mainstream media," I know there is no conspiracy operation keeping Ron Paul from getting coverage. The media don't cover Paul because the media don't think he has a realistic shot of winning. This mentality started from the moment his "hopeless" campaign began, and it continued throughout the campaign season. Paul never garnered enough votes in any single primary or caucus for the media to take notice, so he was ignored. Contrast that with someone like Mike Huckabee, whom the media ignored until he won in Iowa, then was summarily ignored until he recently did well in the South. And Huckabee will be ignored again unless talk of a John McCain-Huckabee ticket starts up.

To the media, the presidential campaigning season is a race to see who will win, not a larger discussion of the candidates' ideas. The media cover the act of campaigning and trying to win elections as a competition, as a sporting event, with story lines -- McCain surges to top of GOP ticket on Super Bowl (er, Tuesday)! But wait, Huckabee lands punishing blow with string of victories in South! But the media essentially ignore the political issues that the candidates espouse. The only time those issues are addressed is when the media need to label the candidates. (In print journalism, that's usually in first, second, or third paragraph of a 20-inch-or-so article.) Once the candidate is labeled as a evangelical Christian conservative, maverick, agent of change, etc., the journalist moves on, rarely touching on why those candidates are labeled as such. They just are.

Even if journalists would do what they should do -- reporting and fact-checking policies and political philosophies that the candidates support, not the pathetic wannabe-sportswriter, political horse-race coverage -- I don't believe Paul would have done any better. And he may have done worse. Here's why:

Paul, with the exception of a few issues, is a libertarian. Although libertarianism is the political philosophy that best matches the Founding Fathers' ideas and what was put in the original Constitution and the first 10 amendments, most Americans aren't familiar with libertarianism and wouldn't accept it if it even were more mainstream. Though libertarianism maximizes personal liberty, that's sometimes inconvenient, and Americans don't like inconveniences. I am a Paul supporter, and of all the articles and videos I've seen about him, Paul never directly refers to the word "libertarianism" or "libertarian," and he shys away from the term if an interviewer brings the word up. Instead, Paul calls himself a member of the Republican Party, even though he ran for president in 1988 on the Libertarian Party ticket and his political have remained mostly unchanged. Why doesn't Paul talk about libertarianism? I think it's because he knows how unpopular libertarianism really is. It's why he tried to frame his libertarian ideas as what the modern-day Republican Party should be embracing but what Bush neocons, et al., have lost.

Additionally, and this is somewhat of a tangent, but I'm curious how many Paul supporters only supported Paul superficially on a few issues or because he was the only Republican candidate supporting "change," mainly in the form of ending the Iraq war and stopping the U.S.'s role as the world's policeman. I suspect a large number of people who say they supported Paul -- and perhaps many who even donated to him -- didn't know much about Paul's other libertarian ideas. It's why you see so many people say they support both Paul and Barack Obama. Both are "change" candidates, but their policies -- libertarianism and socialism lite -- are the most different from each other other than both opposing the Iraq war.

But if these people are consumers of the mainstream media, it's unlikely they would have ever been introduced to those ideas, anyway.

(Patrick, you make many excellent points here. Thank you.)

[Janelle Stewart]

I am proud to support Ron Paul and I understand why main stream media has shunned Ron Paul. It is 'We the people' not you, the corporations making money from death and sickness. Ron Paul said if he doesn't win the election, we the people won't stop trying to make our country a kind, benevolent nation through education and communication. I don't agree with everything Ron Paul stands for and I am afraid of big change, but the time has come to be morally responsible for our destructive role in the world.

[carlos gonzalez]

anyone reading this,please do realize...that are rights and our freedom are being slowly ripped from our grasp by the very ones who swore to respect and protect our constitution and plan to sell or sovereignty and our souls right before eyes...the founding fathers warned us...Mr Paul you are my last hope that my children might live in a nation that is still for the people,by the people and that our perfect document the constitution will be respected and will not perish

[Debbie]

I think that part of the reason that Ron Paul's message has been slow to reach so many people is that people have a tendency to hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see; we listen and accept things that fit into what we already believe and reject ideas that don't fit. We have been conditioned to believe that Americans are "fighting for democracy" all over the world and to reject the notion that we are essentially killing people because they have something we want. It is too ugly to contemplate the thought that we are in Iraq out of greed and not for some noble cause. I read a story today that claims 1 Million Iraqis have died since we invaded their country. 1,000,000 mothers, fathers, sons, sisters, brothers. Some people would justify that as payback for 9/11 even though Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no part in that. Everyone has heard that now, but since we are the self-proclaimed protectors of the free world, it just doesn't fit our collective self-image to believe we made a mistake. It is just easier not to think about, or to say, "Oh well, we just brought the war to them before they brought it to us." We have to be sending our young men and women over there for some good cause because what kind of evil people would that make us otherwise?
People freak out when they hear that Ron Paul wants to abolish whole departments of the Federal Government. They have the mistaken notion that our income taxes are what pays for everything our government does. They can't imagine how our children would get an education without the feds. People say they want change, but that much change seems too scary. Only a kook would even think that much change is possible. It is much easier to sound sane if you push a flat tax. Everybody knows that Huckabee will TRY to implement a flat tax, and hope he can get enough support to get it done, but somehow they think Ron Paul has the notion that he can just move in to the White House and declare the IRS dead.
We have to keep this revolution alive and continue to educate the masses. I woke up; I have to believe others will too. It is not just about putting Ron Paul in the Oval Office, it's about putting good, solid leaders in every level of government and taking back our rights and responsibilities from those who have abused their right to represent us.

[MICHAEL]

GIVEN UP??? WE HAVENT GIVEN UP !!!!! RON PAUL MAY BE IGNORED BY CORPORATE MEDIA. RON PAUL MAY BE IGNORED IN THE NATIONAL DEBATES. YOU BASTARDS CANT IGNORE THE PEOPLE. WE ARE COMING TO SPEADF DR> PAULS MESSAGE LOUD AND CLEAR. WE ARE MARCHING ON WASHINGTON !!!! YOUNG, OLD, RICH, POOR, REPUBLICAN, DEMOCRAT, INDEPENDANT. WE ARE ON THE MOVE. WE ARE NOT GIVING UP ON DR. PAUL. DR PAUL's MESSAGE WILL BE HEARD.