Ron Paul has some great ideas and positions. He might even make a good President someday. But idea's and policies are NOT what the 2008 Presidential Election is all about.
The Republicans controlled Congress through most of the last 13 years and the Presidency for the last 7. And what did we conservatives get in return? Sex scandals, forced resignations, bloated budgets, a botched after-"victory" policy in Iraq, bankruptcy "reform" favoring businesses over the individual. We got pork, and lots of it. We got higher taxes with more on the way. In short, we got business as usual in Washington.
The 2008 Presidential Election is not about ideas or philosophies. It's about one thing and one thing only: making sure Hillary Clinton is not the next President of the United States.
Only a handful of Presidents have really made a difference in the recent past. FDR with socialized security and maneuvering the US into WWII as a way to end the depression. Nixon went to China, who if they play their cards right, will be the reigning economic and political superpower of the 22nd century. Ronald Reagan did defeat the Soviet Union and is a personal hero of mine, but his 1986 Amnesty Bill gave hope to millions of Mexicans who have since invaded America and have caused the immigration mess which will ultimately drag us down to 2nd world status.
Bill Clinton did do one thing I am eternally grateful for: he directed the military to stop purposely distorting the signals from the civilian GPS satellites. I have no sense of direction and an accurate car navigation system is essential to my well-being.
George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter I rank as the two worst Presidents of the 20th century. But for all the damage they did and bad policy they executed, America survived. If Hillary Clinton is elected President, we may not be so lucky.
This next Presidential election is all about NOT electing Hillary Clinton President. Period. Since Ron Paul is not capable of beating her head to head, he can only serve as a spoiler, talking votes away from the Republican candidate. And that elects Hillary President.
I still have great hopes for Obama. If he can get his campaign in sync, he has a chance of beating Hillary in the primaries. Texas has open primaries, and for the first time in my life, I'll be voting in the Democrat primary for Obama. If he's selected as the Democrat candidate, then frankly I don't care who wins the general election anymore so go ahead and push Ron Paul.
But my biggest nightmare is a Clinton/Obama Democrat ticket. That will be REAL tough to overcome and Ron Paul will only make it harder.
Lets talk about Ron Paul for a moment. I'm an evangelical Christian and I could support him. I agree with most of his views. But I'm from Texas and I never even HEARD of this guy before Digg and other similar outlets started publicizing him. He has NO national name recognition and as I said earlier, this is not an election about ideas: it's an election to beat Hillary. She's a household name, has more Teflon coating her than Ronald Reagan could ever dream of having, has a huge and successful political machine and the mainstream media behind her. We also have an American public that is sick of George Bush, sickened by Republicans, and is "looking for a change". It doesn't matter what the change is, it's change time.
When Bill Clinton's 2nd term expired, Hillary basically left Washington, bought a multi-million dollar house in NY (with questionable funding), said "I am a New Yorker", and ran for Senator. All the Clinton scandals and dirt were still fresh in everyones minds. She had no experience as an elected official and NY is a powerful state. She shouldn't have had a chance.
The Republicans put up Rick Lazio, a staunch conservative, very popular in his congressional district, and the darling of NY talk radio. He was a life-long New Yorker and should have mopped the floor with a blatant carpet-bagger like Hillary Clinton. But he had no name recognition in Northern New York and Hillary out-debated him. The rest is history. Yesterday's Rick Lazio is today's Ron Paul.
Fortunately (I can't believe I'm using that word), the Democrats control Congress and public support for Congress is at a low too. The Republicans could actually pick up a few seats there.
But when it comes to the Presidency, lets get real: unless one of them implodes, the Republican nominee is going to be either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. Romney is better on policy but is a Mormon. That doesn't bother me even though I consider Mormons to be cultists, not Christians, any more than it bothered me that Joe Lieberman was Jewish. Or that JFK was Catholic. This is politics, not religion. I do draw the line at Scientologists, but other than that, religion is not going to be a factor in who I vote for. Unfortunately, that may not be the case for the critical evangelical Christians the Republicans need to win. Rudy's position on abortion is not a big help there either.
The last thing we need is another excuse for Christian and conservative voters to "protest" by staying home and that's Ron Paul. Voting sometimes means holding your nose and choosing the lesser of two evils. I did that that when I voted for Bush 43 because Al Gore and his wacky environment policies would have meant $5.00/gallon gas and all kinds of other invasive, restrictive, and America-hurting policies.
Ron Paul has no chance of beating Hillary Clinton head to head. God forbid he decides to run as a third-party candidate and become another Ross Perot, syphoning off Republican votes. It's still early in the campaign so let him run as hard as he likes, as long as its against Hillary and not against the other Republican contenders. In the end, if he's any kind of factor, let him come out strongly for whomever the Republicans do select as their candidate and campaign hard for them and against Hillary. He'll live to fight another day.
One day, Ron Paul could be a viable Presidential candidate, but not this time. The goal for 2008 is to prevent Hillary Clinton, who is a clear and present danger to the nation, from becoming our next President.
At this point, I think Rudy is more electable than Mitt, even though I disagree with Rudy on a number of issues. And he needs to tone down the "9/11 hero" thing: everyone KNOWS all about that already and he doesn't need to rub it in America's face at every opportunity to profit from it....it could backfire. Rudy also did an AMAZING job in transforming NY City from a dirty, crime-ridden, dark, Batman-like Gotham City into the beautiful place it is today: I know, I lived 25 minutes away, and you just didn't visit NY, especially at night, under his predecessor's time in office. I know the liberal spin says otherwise, but Rudy really turned the city around.
And if Rudy does implode, or Mitt Romney looks to be the best bet for beating Hillary, I'll vote for him. Because, as I said at the start, this election is not about policy, ideas or any of that. This election is about one thing and one thing only: Electing ANYONE but Hillary Clinton President of the United States.
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