Fad or Revolution? Looking Back on Ron Paul's Bid for the Presidency

While Congressman Paul's presidential campaign had been winding down for some time, he officially called it quits on June 12, 2008, contributing the remainder of his campaign finances to a new lobbying group called "Campaign for Liberty."  This was Paul's second serious run at the presidency, with his first ending in relative obscurity as a Libertarian candidate in 1988.  As a self-identifying Libertarian I supported Dr. Paul during the primary process, an effort which proved to be difficult to maintain commitment to as the campaign failed to pick up meaningful momentum, receiving oblique and somewhat patronizing coverage by the mainstream media.  Most of Dr. Paul's press revolved around his fundraising success, which was indeed noteworthy considering his lack of relative support in the polls and delegate counts.  Despite his status as a cult hero among independent conservatives and Libertarians, Paul revealed himself in the campaign to have a handful of glaring faults that contributed to his inability to get a foothold in the primary process. Unfortunately he did not possess the necessary social and aesthetic qualities to glaze over these shortcomings (ala Barack Obama).

Nothing made me cringe more during Dr. Paul's public appearances than when he would, with admirable vigor, proclaim the United States' complicity in the threat it faces abroad from Islam.  This was a position that obviously did not endear him to the mainstream of the Republican Party, as it was that very part of his party he was indicting in the Iraq fiasco.  He blamed the FOXNews crowd and its constituents as troublemakers in a conflict he insisted the United States had no role while downplaying the significance of Islam as a catalyst, even going so far as to lay the blame for Islamic terrorism at the doorstep of the U.S. for its overreaching foreign policy.  Paul's inability to articulate a coherent foreign policy, other than asserting that the Iraq war and just about every war previous since WWII has been "unconstitutional," was clearly a weakness in his campaign.  His naivety on the subject of Islamic terrorism seemed to amount to nothing more than a stubborn refusal to recognize that there are people out there with some pretty ridiculous ideas about the world who mean to do us harm.  While Paul was right to recognize that Iraq was a war of choice with a questionable beginning, he fails to notice that had Bush not chosen to invade we still would be facing a determined enemy of Muslim maniacs.  Even if Bush and the neocons are guilty of exploiting the threat, there is no denying the presence of a considerable foreign danger.

While Paul's positions on terrorism served to keep him safely tucked into the fray of the Republican Party, his weaknesses as a politician kept him from being taken seriously by a general audience as well.  Dr. Paul is a well below average TV debater;  even his fellow debaters on the stage seemed to be befuddled by his questions and answers.  Unlike the insufferable media darlings Clinton, Obama, and McCain, the Congressman is no social butterfly, and makes no sacrifices of his principles to score cheap points with the media (Obama: see campaign finance et al., McCain: see ethanol et al.).  

But I am not so foolish as to think that if Dr. Paul was indeed a gifted politician and orator that he would be a contender in any primary or general election.  It is of course the content of Paul's message that is his roadblock to prominence, a message that seems to travel further and further from influence as the party and the country continue to move to the left. 

His classic Republican positions on spending, social programs, immigration, and foreign policy fall more or less on deaf ears as the party continues to be ruled by "movement" conservatives.  While McCain and Obama will bicker endlessly until November about who is more an agent of change, Dr. Paul will retreat again into the shadows of a fading ideological camp of the Republican Party.  While he has likely made his last foray into national politics, this old style Republican hopes that Paul's name appears on the ballot, so that me and others like me may (quietly) voice our opposition to the direction of the party.  And as we stubbornly refuse to fall in line with the mainstream, we will wait patiently for the next articulate voice of the true conservative message.