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Tim Slagle is a standup comedian living in Chicago.
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Nose under the tent —
Ron Paul is getting traction. I think everyone who's ever supported Ron Paul is shocked at the success he is experiencing — and no one seems more surprised than Ron Paul. Since modern political battle has become exclusive territory for narcissists and sociopaths, it's refreshing to see a candidate with humility.
I'm quite certain that there is a lot of surprise within the GOP hierarchy as well. I think that the Republicans have consistently dismissed libertarians and underestimated how much of their base is ex-LPers who got tired of losing elections.
I feel there are going to be two interesting outcomes from this primary that could have revolutionary impacts on the libertarian movement. First, there will be a much different LP — after Paul has drawn away manpower and resources for the duration of his campaign. And, if the Paul campaign gives the mainstream candidates any resistance, Republicans — for the first time in a long time — will have to recognize that there are a few libertarians in their big tent.
— Tim Slagle
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Jim Walsh is an assistant editor of Liberty.
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Critical response —
On Monday, Nov. 5, Ron Paul's U.S. presidential campaign raised over $4 million. This was the largest single-day contribution total so far for any campaign in the 2008 presidential race. The money may help Paul emerge from the second-tier of GOP candidates in time for the early primaries.
The one-day haul resonated with mainstream media, which understands money in politics and promptly ordered up features on Paul. That coverage itself may have been worth several million dollars more to his campaign.
The money and media attention improve Paul's prospects, though he's still a dark horse. They also boost his chances of staying in the race through the Republican convention this summer, where he may be heard by a larger audience. Many small-government advocates — who loathe the major U.S. political parties but regret "throwing away" their support on third-party candidates — may be a bit happier about voting for Paul in a GOP primary than other options.
But one of the most interesting results of Paul's haul was the critical coverage that it received from statist partisans. Some critics harped on the allegation that some Paul supporters had used spam bots and other tools of unscrupulous internet marketing to gin up support. Others dismissed Paul as merely the Howard Dean of this cycle — an internet oddity destined for a quick exit from the center stage of American politics.
Still others responded more viscerally.
Andrew Leonard — a contributor to the left-wing website Salon.com — left Paul and his millions aside and attacked the donors. Here's some of what Leonard wrote:
Geeks skew libertarian. . . . By the nature of their work, programmers count on being able to precisely manipulate reality through their manipulation of code. . . . Libertarians take, as a starting point, that the fewest rules, or the least government, result in the cleanest code. . . . Get back to basics — get rid of the cruft, the ambiguities, the illogic. Paul's political positions — antiwar, states' rights, antiabortion, anti-death penalty, abolish the Federal Reserve, go back to the gold standard — are clear and unambiguous. The code for expressing those views is
easily written.
Ri-i-i-ght. With charlatans like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards seeking the presidency, Ron Paul is the one who panders with simplistic bromides. (Also, it's interesting to see "clear and unambiguous" used as pejoratives when describing a politician. I'd say that's not a bug, it's a feature.)
Leonard — like many mainstram media types, affecting a pose of worldliness — defends the messiness of porcine establishment politics as adults' work. This condescension and cynicism is striking.
Get used to it. Regardless of how far Dr. Paul proceeds in this presidential cycle, he is articulating a reasonably coherent libertarian perspective. His code resonates and will be adopted by other programmers. As America's federal benefits system lumbers along toward insolvency, libertarian voices will grow louder in the political mainstream. And, as they do, establishment hacks will dismiss them as simplistic and unsophisticated — geeks who should stick to Halo 3.
But sloppy code fails. Cruft makes systems run slowly. And all the hipster condescension in the world doesn't change the fact that statist redistribution schemes are a bad, buggy application. The geeks supporting Ron Paul may be easy to ridicule; but they're used to that. Clean code is efficient. And time is on our side.
— Jim Walsh
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Bruce Ramsey is a journalist in Seattle.
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Paul's Haul —
Most Americans don't know about Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5, which celebrates the capture of a man who in 1605 plotted to assassinate King James I of England by blowing up the House of Lords. But libertarians loved the political movie "V for Vendetta," in which a future Guy Hawkes brings a fascistic British state to trembling ruin with bluster, bombs, and the Fawkesian slogan, "Remember, remember the fifth of November." And so the idea was hatched for supporters of the presidential campaign of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul to funnel donations on one day — Nov. 5, 2007.
It was not a Paul idea; it came from fans who started a web page, ThisNovember5th.com. Their idea was to get media attention to a one-day record — a thing that could be done by outsiders only by means of the internet.
The goal was $10 million, which was indeed fantastic. Paul actually raised $4.07 million, which was still more than any of his Republican rivals had raised on any single day. The Paul campaign said it had signed up more than 21,000 new donors on Nov 5. The Washington Post called it "head-snapping fundraising."
So it was. And it came in the wake of $5.2 million raised between July 1 and Sept. 30, which was head-snapping in itself. And that gets us to the main point: endurance. The primary contest for the presidency is a matter of endurance, and so far Ron Paul has endured. In addition to money he has a clear message and an enthusiastic following, which one cannot say of most of the others.
In its news story on Paul's haul, the Washington Post quoted a Republican operative who said, "Money is a resource, not an outcome." The man was right and, although the money has enabled Paul to get TV commercials on the air in New Hampshire, he is still polling in single digits. At press time, he is at 3.7% in New Hampshire — up from 1% in early summer, but still not in striking distance of victory. Intrade, the internet betting page, gives Paul's chance of winning the nomination as 9%.
He's still not winning — but he has risen to the top of the second tier. As I write, Paul's chances of winning the Republican nomination are ranked third on Intrade, well behind Giuliani's and Romney's, and slightly ahead of Thompson's and McCain's, who have peaked and gone into decline.
Though Paul's chances remain slight, he may win a bloc of delegates, particularly from the caucus states. Once the primary contests are over — and they will be over quickly — the focus will be on what Paul can do with his delegates, and whether he will be allowed to be heard at the convention. The better he does now, the more noise he can make then.
— Bruce Ramsey
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Stephen Cox is a professor of literature at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America.
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Upcoming dates —
The Libertarian Party will hold its presidential nominating convention in Denver in May 2008.
The Republican Party will hold its presidential nominating convention in St. Paul in September 2008.
This is a major problem for the Libertarian Party.
In 1988, the LP nominated Republican Congressman Ron Paul as its presidential candidate. Ron is now running for president on the Republican ticket. Despite large contributions — which, I somehow suspect, come mainly from left-wing antiwar types, not right-wing opponents of tax increases or illegal immigration, both of which Ron also opposes — he will never be nominated by the Republicans. He will pick up a few delegates, and the Grand Old Party will do its best to keep these people from kicking up an antiwar, isolationist fuss at the convention.
That's too bad — very much too bad. But it, like Ron's defeat, seems inevitable.
In 1996, I reported for this journal from the Republican national convention in San Diego, where Pat Buchanan, the darling of the GOP's core constituency, was prevented from staging any effective antiestablishment demonstration. You heard it here first: Ron will suffer the same fate.
In the meantime, the Libertarian Party will have to decide whether to nominate Ron — despite the fact that, while running for the Republican nomination, he would have no business accepting the Libertarian nomination, and doubtless would refuse to do so — or to nominate someone to run against the Republican nominee, who might, theoretically, be their old friend Ron.
For a libertarian like me, these proceedings will be sadly fascinating.
The Libertarian Party was a good idea to begin with. Since Ron's campaign in 1988, however, it has been tossing in the shoals of American politics. Now it may be headed for the rocks.
I hate to see bright, well-motivated people experience disappointment, when they have done much good in the past, especially on the local level. (My own local LP, the glorious San Diego County Libertarian Party, has been responsible for tens of millions of dollars in tax rollbacks.) I am sure that 2008 will not bring the end of libertarian political action, action that continually increases, with or without the LP's involvement. Ron's candidacy is only the most obvious current instance. One of the LP's institutional problems is the fact that libertarian ideas and projects can be found virtually everywhere, in both major parties, in think tanks, in activist groups, and throughout the popular media. The struggle for liberty is often motivated by "single issues," not a unified doctrine, but this doesn't render the struggle ineffective; sometimes, it leads to successes that unified doctrines seldom have in America.
The coming year may show us whether the LP as an institution can find a path toward continued productive work. If it cannot, the election of 2008 will be a particularly sad event, but it will by no means spell the end of the libertarian cause.
— Stephen Cox
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