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Don’t let the absence of tact, polish, logic, and stability fool you: Ron Paul slithers like a true pol

Please don’t take this as a reflection on my personal  life, but perhaps  because I’ve lived in Nevada, Korea, and Washington, D.C.,  I  have only  mild moral objections to voluntary exchanges of sex for money between adults.  I’d think that this would be a rare point on which I’d agree with Ron Paul.  But when asked if he was  “shocked” to learn that  the Moonlight Bunny Ranch had contributed to his campaign, Paul missed  the chance  to  defend social libertarianism by saying, “Of course not.  I don’t believe it’s government’s role to regulate personal morality.”  Instead,  Paul slithered through a muck of:  Hey, how should I know who’s sending me checks?   (Because the reporter just told you so.  Now answer the damn question.)  

I can live with honest differences of opinion with anyone who means me no harm, but I question the judgment of people who assume that Ron Paul is more sincere than other politicians  because  Paul dares to be wacky.  And is it just me, or when Paul is giving his answer, does he  really seem to be defending his decision to keep the spigots open on  that white supremacist money he’s taking?  I wonder if Paul thinks those people “believe in freedom,” too. 

Paulbots love to rail at the media for ignoring their candidate.  Maybe they should be thankful the media really haven’t called Paul on this  and let him  share a stage with  candidates with the discretion to refuse neo-Nazi money.  I don’t want to overstate this.  Ron Paul takes David Duke’s money, but he isn’t David Duke.  But if Ron Paul were (a) as smooth and polished as David Duke, or (b)  stealing oxygen at  Democratic debates instead of Republican ones, I don’t think as many pundits would  do him the  unjustified charity of giving him national air time and dismissing him.

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  3. I found this startling too so I clicked around and finally found the answer on the original link itself. They need to have a HUGE asterisk on this chart, though even with that it would still be really misleading. Hmm, no, they need to rename that chart. Anyway, this is what it says to the right of the chart (where none of us initially looked):

    “The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.”

    Below there is a link about why they use donors employer info, but it’s dead.

    I’ve always been a casual fan of opensecrets.org (more in concept than actual usage) but this is ridiculous. You can’t name a chart Top Contributors when the data is really Top Affiliations of Contributors. Looks like someone needs a crash course in Edward Tufte (assuming they don’t intend to mislead, that is).

  4. The Affiliations are still relevant for seeing what types of people and organizations are giving the most backing to candidates. Not suprisingly, the mainstream candidates of both parties have the same major banks at the top of their lists.

    (Hillary also has Newscorp, heh.)

  5. Matt, I don’t deny you the right to root for anyone in our elections — so don’t misunderstand this — but your comment causes me to consider this question for the first time: I wonder how many of Ron Paul’s most enthusiastic supporters aren’t even Americans, and thus not eligible to vote here. I’ve seen articles suggesting that despite the cult-like enthusiasm of a few, Paul’s numbers in the actual polls aren’t that high. This may explain part of that.

    Mind you, I think Paul’s supporters will show nearly 100% turnout, which means that polls probably understate how well he’ll do in the primaries. My fear is that Paul will probably give us a bit of a shock and bring in something approaching 15-20%. (Hmm. Perhaps it’s time to switch on the satellite with the mind-control rays. Oops. Sure hope no one reads this!)

    Paul’s isolationism and his appeal to extremists certainly ought to have appeal in Europe, for example, where the political extremes are far more expansive than they are here.

  6. Matt, I don’t deny you the right to root for anyone in our elections — so don’t misunderstand this — but your comment causes me to consider this question for the first time: I wonder how many of Ron Paul’s most enthusiastic supporters aren’t even Americans, and thus not eligible to vote here. I’ve seen articles suggesting that despite the cult-like enthusiasm of a few, Paul’s numbers in the actual polls aren’t that high. This may explain part of that.

    Mind you, I think Paul’s supporters will show nearly 100% turnout, which means that polls probably understate how well he’ll do in the primaries. My fear is that Paul will probably give us a bit of a shock and bring in something approaching 15-20%. (Hmm. Perhaps it’s time to switch on the satellite with the mind-control rays. Oops. Sure hope no one reads this!)

    Paul’s isolationism and his appeal to extremists certainly suggest that he’d also have appeal in Europe, for example, where the political extremes are far more expansive than they are here.

  7. Hi Joshua,

    I must admit that I do not usually look forward to a US election, but I do this time. As a pro-American Australian (or American-friendly or whatever), I want to see the US do well and I think a Ron Paul presidency would do a lot to restore the damage done to the US since 2001.

    In a Ron Paul Presidency:

    Civil rights – check. Privacy – check. No torture – check. No pre-emptive nuclear bombings – check. No faking intelligence to make third world nations seem more threatening than they actually are – check. No corporate welfare – check. No endless billions going to friends of administration – check.

    You could just go on and on.

    From what I can see on the blogosphere, most of the supporters of Ron Paul are indeed American. I think the reason that they are supporting Ron Paul is that they are fed up with the Bush administration and its unaccountability, and the fact that the other candidates represent the status quo, in essence a Bush third term.

    Ron Paul is the only one out there advocating radical change, like reducing spending to 1997 levels for example, thus being able to abolish the income tax.

    I don’t think Ron Paul is an isolationist just because he doesn’t want to bomb foreign peoples. Certainly under a Ron Paul Presidency the US would have a smaller footprint around the world, but it also gives the US an opportunity to stop being a tar baby for every radical group around the world.