WTF Paul? Part Two

What the hell happened to Ron Paul?

Former Republican presidential contender Ron Paul has endorsed Don Young in his bid to win an 18th term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Paul, the 72-year-old congressman from Texas whose maverick presidential bid drew wide support in Alaska, sent out a letter to his supporters here urging them to vote for Young.

“Don and I have served together in Congress for many years, and I consider him a friend,” Paul wrote in the letter. “Don has been an outspoken voice against environmental extremists over the years and has strongly opposed the types of federal regulatory overreach advocated in the name of environmentalism.”

Paul and Young are a bit of an odd couple. Paul is a fiscal conservative; Young believes in earmarking federal dollars for Alaska wherever possible. Paul opposes the Iraq war; Young supports it.

Ron Paul is very quickly burning any and all credibility he has as a figurehead of the small government movement within the Republican Party. He's backing a pork-barrel and Mike Huckabee-endorsed Republican over a small government conservative, Sean Parnell, backed by the Club for Growth. Almost all of the scenarios discussed here at Freedom Democrats for the resurgence of true small government conservatives depended on an alliance of sorts between the Club for Growth and the Ron Paul Revolution. Now, we instead have growing signs of an alliance between Mike Huckabee's Christian conservatives followers and the Ron Paul Revolution. This is sham limited government conservatism. We'll get a party that will continue its social, cultural, and religious intolerance despite cries of "FREEDOM!" at the top of their lungs.

She's a state representative and in the GOP mix for that seat as well. She is more or less running as a libertarian Republican who is against the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and REAL ID. However, Paul pretty much refuses to endorse against any incumbent at this point. However, it is still rather mind-boggling that Paul would actually positively endorse a warmongering crook like Young. Then again, chalk this up as yet another inexplicable action by Paul.

Nonetheless, the r3VOLution-CFG axis, to the extent that it takes hold, was always going to be a post 2008 election phenomenon, predicated entirely on the assumption that the GOP loses complete power in Washington. Assuming McCain loses and the GOP suffers significant losses in the house and senate, I'm pretty sure you will see this Sam's Club/Huckabee vs CFG/r3VOLUtion struggle take place. As i have also posted, the demographic trends work against the type of xenophobic, "pro-life" libertarianism that Paul represents. Yet it's difficult to predict what exactly what will emerge from the GOP cauldron because the unknown variable is how a Democratic Majority will govern.

Personally, from a libertarian political perspective, rather than throw one's lot in with disagreeable elements in either party, it would be more productive in the long term to focus on voting reform to end plurality voting, break the 2 party duopoly system, and create a system that would accommodate a 4 or 5 parties that would more accurately represent the political divisions. I don't think it's that far-fetched(given the expanding independent voter). It's empirically and theoretically clear, just from studying the Cournot Duopoly model, that the 2-party system will not end the American Empire.

Paul has always been quick to abandon libertarian ideals on social issues to appease the Christian Right. He has a lot more in common with Huckabee than he doesn't. Always has.

Ron Paul has never been anything other than a statist Reagan Republican with a slightly different spin. I don't know what's more shameful, the fact he calls himself a libertarian, or the fact that so many people believe him.

Interesting you link an Idaho Statesman article. The Idaho GOP has been foisting this exact brand of ideological chutzpah on the general public for years.