You’ve got libertarians, you’ve got antiwar types and you’ve got nationalists and xenophobes. I’m not sure that is leading anywhere. I think he’s a sui generis type of guy who’s cobbling together some irreconcilable constituencies, many of which are backward-looking rather than forward-looking. ~Brink Lindsey
Via Jesse Walker
But bringing together many different constituencies is the way that political coalitions are born. Yes, many constitutionalists are “backward-looking,” in the sense that they look back to the kind of constitutional interpretation that did not permit rampant, unchecked growth of the state. They assume that it was actually better to have a smaller government and more political liberty, and they recognise that this existed in the past, the best parts of which they would like to restore.
It might be that the sheer numbers of Rep. Paul’s supporters nationwide are not great enough to create a new or functioning coalition, but it occurred to me earlier today that any coalition that can effectively unite non-interventionists, nationalists and libertarians certainly has the potential of leading somewhere. A coalition that argues in defense of civil liberties, national sovereignty, and border security and calls for an end to empire at the same time without succumbing to any strains of cultural radicalism could have very broad appeal. It would essentially be campaigning on all those important matters that the established parties have badly neglected and campaigning against the ruinous policies that the parties have embraced.
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December 8th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Koz
Patrick Ruffini wrote about this a month or so ago,
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/7bec946b-bc0e-4a5f-a73f-5eef4f7913dd
and I think he gets the better of the argument. People support RP to satisfy their itch to Flip the Bird to The Man. Once that’s gone, what else is there? The libertarians inside the party usually want to pick fights with James Dobson, legalize weed, abortion, support gay rights, etc. All that stuff is being swept under the rug for the sake of the RP campaign.
OTOH, all Republicans hate Noam Chomsky. None of them are going to go for the Chomsky line on foreign policy. That means the “non-interventionists” are going to have to switch to decaf, which will be the end of them.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Zarathustra
It’s rather odd then that even as far back as 1992, and again in 1996, a Republican Presidential candidate was able to legitimately threaten much more well funded candidates with defeat, partly by taking a line on foreign/defense policy almost identical to Paul’s position. Heck, he even won the New Hampshire primary in 1996! Now, what was his name again…
December 9th, 2007 at 2:52 am
bsebse
I think Frum once said “most people agree with Pat Buchanan on the issues, they just don’t like the way he is saying it.”
I think there is a lot of truth to this. Ron Paul isn’t exactly Pat Buchanan, but I would say there is 50% overlap, and his other issue are also acceptable to paleocons.
My mother is a great example. She wants America to be strong, doesn’t like sending jobs overseas and thinks we have too much immigration but doesn’t want any radical action on that.
Pat scared her, however, and she would not vote for him. She didn’t like how he was making a big deal about homosexuality. (We have a gay person in our extended family).
It does seem like there is room for a third party if they can stick to Ron Paul’s formula of espousing freedom where there is disagreement on the social issue.
Lord knows the Wall Street Republicans have not been good to the working class Republicans in Ohio and Michigan.
December 9th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Koz
Pat’s message was mostly domestic, ie, trying to marry a socon platform with mercantilist protectionism for the working class. For those times, foreign policy was an afterthought.
And, let’s not forget to note, Pat went nowhere. He was strongest in ‘92 as a protest vote against Bush pere (see a RP parallel there?). By ‘00 he had regressed back to his 2-3% mean.