The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

And so it goes One Eyed Monster

"Fringe" is clearly a relative term.

Alas, for you, Perry has a very real chance of being our next pesident.

Wh0, do you think, is a mainstream Republican candidate?

I freely admit to not understanding all the people in the 'hunt' but John Stewart made a bit of a thing tonight about Ron Paul's 'invisibility' in the media commentary post Iowa straw poll, even though his numbers were close to Bachmann's
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecision-2012---corn-polled-edition---michele-bachmann-wins---tim-pawlenty-drops-out

What's the Ron Paul story? Does he molest children?

He's the only avowed libertarian in the Senate. The left has their token socialist in Bernie Sanders and the right has their token libertarian in Ron Paul.

Yes.

Thanks JPB, But why do the media (not just Fox) seem reluctant to mention his name? If he's the drunk uncle of a political party I understand the party downplaying, but why would the media - I would have thought his result was news in itself.

So far, Perry is just a bumper sticker candidate for the christian right. The right wing had been attempting to bludgeon Mr. Obama about job creation, the deficit and the economy in general. Mr. Perry will have to address those issues with more than bumper sticker sound bites about family values in order to survive the nomination process and then run against Mr. Obama.

Because he came in second in the Iowa straw poll which is quickly becoming a popularity contest among the loonier faction of the party. 2nd loon isn't much of a banner.

Will he? Failure to do that didn't stop George Bush II.

Has the left picked someone to run against Mr. Downgrade yet?

Worse: Ron Paul is anti-war. In the 2008 campaign, I watched a similar debate among Republican candidates. The moderator asked what the candidates considered the greatest moral failing in American politics. Predictably, everyone said support for abortion---except Ron Paul who said the greatest failing of modern politics was the casual starting of wars. From the perspective of Republican shot-callers, that's way worse than child molestation.

But that's not all: Instead of repeating everybody else's talking points, Ron Paul regurgitates his own. If enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity, Paul is easily the most enlightened Republican candidate. And today's Republican party rejects the project of Enlightenment---too liberal.

Personally, I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul. Indeed, I think his economic program would yield catastrophic consequences for America. But I do applaud him for having his own principles and for standing his ground on them.

Thanks Thomas, like I said I can understand the party ignoring him, but in Australia that sort of square peg in a round party attracts media attention (Malcolm Turnbull springs to mind)

I think the coverage of the Iowa straw poll results quickly faded into the abyss because Perry chose that day to enter the race. The media is all over him and everything about him. Paul would have been newsworthy for a few more days if not for Perry. We Americans have a very short attention span.

Mr. Bush's campaign was supported by Mr. Cheney and the Reagan crew (Rumsfeld et al). Additionally, his opponent was Al Gore, one of the feeblest candidates in recent memory. For all the ammunition which the conservatives can bring against Mr. Obama, he has already demonstrated that he is a skilled campaigner. Bush was not campaigning against a sitting president, but Perry would be. Bush portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative, and while campaigning on traditional Reublican values of tax cuts and defense spending, he also portrayed himself as deeply concerned with the plight of minorities and the state of education in the nation. Perry is not likely to be credible on the compassion issue, he can hardly cut taxes further without precipitating economic disaster, and Mr. Obama has been quite generous with his defense spending. Finally, Bush campaigned in an era of fiscal high times, with Mr. Clinton having finally bullied the Republicans into balancing their budgets, while polls showed that people didn't feel burdened by their tax bills. Perry would have to peddle tax cuts and increased defense spending, if he chooses that route, in an era of fiscal starvation.

I don't think your analogy makes it. More importantly, it should be remembered that Mr. Bush was a minority president in his first term--despite all of Gore's weaknesses in the campaign, he still polled more in the popular vote than Bush did. Bush became president largely because the Supremes fiddled the Florida recount.

Notice that most of Steward's examples come from Fox News, which acts as a player, not a mere reporter, in America's politics. Also, Ron Paul's organization is run by grass roots activists. These people possess a lot of zeal and energy, but tend to lack professionalism and often don't know when to stop proselytizing. I can imagine that the Paul campaign is spamming TV reporters with campaign material, and that they're simply annoyed. I have no evidence for this speculation, though.

When a political campaign proves successful, you can always find reasons for it after the fact. But that doesn't mean much. the proper comparison is to look at both campaigns before the fact. And before the 2000 election, the George Bush campaign struck me as utterly unimpressive, even though I was much more sympathetic to the Republican party than I am tody. It isn't clear to me that Perry's campaign qualifies as even more feckless. But I'm sure we'll find out.

The National Journal has a good expose of Perry's "Weak Right Flank".

interesting discussion on CBC radio yesterday of who's got the best/most active foot soldiers right now in the Republican group . The money is on Perry's team right now as his campaigners are religious believers - Jeff Sharlet certainly seems to think that there's no believer like a religious believer.

He suggests Perry's connected to
the group described in this book.

Don't you wish the press would have worked at exposing Obama in this way during his last campaign...
they still have time to expose Obama before the next election - does anyone think they will?

Yes, we will find out. However, you're ignoring points i made which were specific to his campaign before he was elected. He promised to be a compassionate conservative and he was backed by Cheney and company. Perry doesn't have equivalent advantages. See JPB's post below yours. Any compassion Perry may claim could well bite him in the ass.