Ron Paul is not a white supremacist. He's just so anti-government interference that he opposes even the government programs that most agree are good things like the civil rights legislation.
Go look up the Ron Paul Political Report, put out by his campaigns with his approval and with his name on it, for years.
When his Stormfront connections became unpopular, Paul first claimed that the material was never in the report, then that he never knew it was there, then claimed that he knew about it, didn't write it, and didn't approve of it and that the person responsible had been sacked but he didn't want to apologise or print a retraction because that would create "confusion".
Oh, the person who wrote it? The one who was fired? Still works for Paul, and ran one of his state campaigns in 2008.
So, if we believe Ron Paul, he argues that he's so incompetent and inattentive that he never knew what was going out under his name, and never noticed that the person he fired for attaching Paul's name to racists screeds still worked for him, and he didn't want to take a non-racist position after it was revealed because that might confuse his supporters.
Oh, and his position on the legality of sunset laws and repealing the civil rights movement? They're just COINCIDENTAL, and entirely unrelated to that previous paragraph.
Which is complete inconsistent bullshit.
Meanwhile, out here in the real world where Ron Paul's story doesn't make any sense at all, we have a white supremacist who leapt back into the closet once he started moving out of Texas and claims deniability on past white supremacist speech, but who insists on continuing to work legislatively for every white supremacist goal and who employs openly white supremacist campaign managers.
IIRC he was weaselly in interviews about it, he never said he wasn't a white supremacist exactly... but that his local voting supporters weren't offended by the (racist) content. Raising the possibility that his supporters were racist, but while people (reporters, bloggers, etc) were willing to call out ron paul as racist they weren't willing to go so far and to call his supporters that.
Or something to that effect, haven't have caffeine yet.
There's a bunch. (http://articles.cnn.com/2008-01-10/politics/paul.newsletters_1_newsletters-blacks-whites?_s=PM:POLITICS)
Paul published an openly white supremacist newsletter for years, under his own name, with his own byline.
Once it became politically embarassing, he claimed he never read his own newsletter, didn't know the contents of his own newletter, and signed off on it without reading, and thus he never knew about any of that.
When it was pointed out that he was claiming utter incompetence as his defense, he changed his story to say that the staffer responsible had been sacked. Said staffer still works for him today.
The thing that struck me about that link was him saying "I am the anti-racist because I am the only candidate -- Republican or Democrat -- who would protect the minority against these vicious drug laws." Why would his drug policy be an anti-racist stance?
I guess I was just struck by the inference that (insert other race)=affected by drug laws. It seems like he's saying that he's not a racist because he's for protecting other races from the problems with the drug laws that they no doubt have because they are minorities.
"Openly white-supremacist" seems overstated from what I can find with a quick Google. He apparently knows less about what's published in his newsletter than Rupert Murdoch does about his newspapers, and he's keynoted for the John Birch society.
Meh... he's getting a poll bump from coming in second in the Ames straw poll, and from Jon Stewart's Daily Show spot on "Why is the media ignoring Ron Paul?", but he's still got a whelk's chance in a supernova of clinching the nomination.
Yeah, he's very photogenic. He's also a evangelist fucktard governor from Texas, and you'd think we'd learned our lesson from the last evangelist fucktard governor from Texas to run for President.
It's a common spin to say that George W. Bush was a Yankee, and maybe I've been away from Texas for too long, but having grown up there, I KNEW people exactly like Dubya. He was uniquely Texan in a bunch of ways. His father, on the otherhand, was a milquetoast Kennebunkport TIBO.
Perry started out as a Democrat in the same way that Phil Gramm started out as a Democrat. The South's political alignment has been slow, in many cases.
Perry makes Bush look like a well-loved intelligent man. There's no real comparison. Perry can't win, which is why he will be nominated over Romney, who has a better chance but suffers the tragic flaw of being a Mormon.
*sigh* Really, media? "Clobbers"? A 5-point difference in a several-way split where nobody managed even 1-in-4 support counts as "clobbering" now?
All these preliminaries are so mind-bendingly pointless. How many of the final-ticket candidates throughout history were leading the race at this point? I'd ask why anyone even cares, but I already know the answer and it's as depressing as everything else about this race.
Mighty-whitey or not, I'd still rather see Paul get the nod than anyone else in that wretched lineup. Well, maybe the self-declared "moderate" who keeps getting shut out of the debates, but we can already see where that's going.
The perennially-last-place joke candidate came out ahead of the one everyone takes seriously. That's "clobbers". That's like Carrot Top polling 5 points ahead of Harrison Ford in a poll about who should play Han Solo in a new Star Wars movie.
Not gonna lie, I have quite a few problems with the embedded assumptions there.
To start with, "perennially-last-place joke candidate". Ok, granted he was in last place of the four who were still in the race in Feb, but how many had dropped out before that? I'd say those would count as placing further back than him. Also, he managed to set several fundraising records along the way. That's a far cry from a Bozo-the-Clown "joke candidate", even if he never had a real chance at the actual finish line.
Further, using Harrison Ford and Han Solo implies a level of predetermination (and, again, poll-meaningfulness) that really just doesn't apply in this case. Considering Paul's proven social-networking savvy and grassroots support, and considering Perry jumped into the race virtually only moments ago while Paul's been building up steam for YEARS, and considering the last round was won by Michelle "Batshit" Bachmann, I can't think of a way to modify your simile to fit the situation better without throwing it out completely and just starting over.
Anyway I still think it's nearly irrelevant who wins any of these until around November or December at the earliest, except of course for the whole idiotic horserace narrative and the possible impression of "momentum", but even that's pretty insubstantial stuff to be pinning any actual weight to. And I still think that Paul, bedsheets and all, still ranks among the best of a very very very bad lot. Which mostly says something about the lot itself.
Paul's a perennial joke specifically *because* he manages to pull the "look at me, I'm a real candidate this time! For real! Not like the last times! Oh wait it turns out I'm a joke after all!" each and every single time.
It looks like 2012 just shows that most everyone *outside* his party has figured out the trick and no longer wonders if the magician is going to make the ball reappear.
Han Solo: Okay, bad choice. Picture it as Carrot Top beating Ford for the lead supporting role in Cowboys Vs Aliens, then - a critically acclaimed well-beloved actor of both cowboys *and* aliens, versus Carrot Top.
Bachmann: Hey, I could see Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson getting past the initial casting call.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 03:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 03:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 12:30 pm (UTC)When his Stormfront connections became unpopular, Paul first claimed that the material was never in the report, then that he never knew it was there, then claimed that he knew about it, didn't write it, and didn't approve of it and that the person responsible had been sacked but he didn't want to apologise or print a retraction because that would create "confusion".
Oh, the person who wrote it? The one who was fired? Still works for Paul, and ran one of his state campaigns in 2008.
So, if we believe Ron Paul, he argues that he's so incompetent and inattentive that he never knew what was going out under his name, and never noticed that the person he fired for attaching Paul's name to racists screeds still worked for him, and he didn't want to take a non-racist position after it was revealed because that might confuse his supporters.
Oh, and his position on the legality of sunset laws and repealing the civil rights movement? They're just COINCIDENTAL, and entirely unrelated to that previous paragraph.
Which is complete inconsistent bullshit.
Meanwhile, out here in the real world where Ron Paul's story doesn't make any sense at all, we have a white supremacist who leapt back into the closet once he started moving out of Texas and claims deniability on past white supremacist speech, but who insists on continuing to work legislatively for every white supremacist goal and who employs openly white supremacist campaign managers.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 02:10 pm (UTC)Or something to that effect, haven't have caffeine yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 05:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 12:36 pm (UTC)Paul published an openly white supremacist newsletter for years, under his own name, with his own byline.
Once it became politically embarassing, he claimed he never read his own newsletter, didn't know the contents of his own newletter, and signed off on it without reading, and thus he never knew about any of that.
When it was pointed out that he was claiming utter incompetence as his defense, he changed his story to say that the staffer responsible had been sacked. Said staffer still works for him today.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 02:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 02:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 03:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 04:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 08:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 11:00 am (UTC)The fucker that we need to worry about is Perry.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 11:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 11:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 01:16 pm (UTC)Bush was a yankee anyway.
Interesting thing about Perry was that he started out a Democrat.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 02:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 05:02 pm (UTC)Perry started out as a Democrat in the same way that Phil Gramm started out as a Democrat. The South's political alignment has been slow, in many cases.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 05:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 04:43 pm (UTC)VOTE FOR CTHULU!
Why settle for the lesser evil?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-19 01:21 pm (UTC)All these preliminaries are so mind-bendingly pointless. How many of the final-ticket candidates throughout history were leading the race at this point? I'd ask why anyone even cares, but I already know the answer and it's as depressing as everything else about this race.
Mighty-whitey or not, I'd still rather see Paul get the nod than anyone else in that wretched lineup. Well, maybe the self-declared "moderate" who keeps getting shut out of the debates, but we can already see where that's going.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-19 01:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-19 07:37 pm (UTC)To start with, "perennially-last-place joke candidate". Ok, granted he was in last place of the four who were still in the race in Feb, but how many had dropped out before that? I'd say those would count as placing further back than him. Also, he managed to set several fundraising records along the way. That's a far cry from a Bozo-the-Clown "joke candidate", even if he never had a real chance at the actual finish line.
Further, using Harrison Ford and Han Solo implies a level of predetermination (and, again, poll-meaningfulness) that really just doesn't apply in this case. Considering Paul's proven social-networking savvy and grassroots support, and considering Perry jumped into the race virtually only moments ago while Paul's been building up steam for YEARS, and considering the last round was won by Michelle "Batshit" Bachmann, I can't think of a way to modify your simile to fit the situation better without throwing it out completely and just starting over.
Anyway I still think it's nearly irrelevant who wins any of these until around November or December at the earliest, except of course for the whole idiotic horserace narrative and the possible impression of "momentum", but even that's pretty insubstantial stuff to be pinning any actual weight to. And I still think that Paul, bedsheets and all, still ranks among the best of a very very very bad lot. Which mostly says something about the lot itself.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-19 08:47 pm (UTC)It looks like 2012 just shows that most everyone *outside* his party has figured out the trick and no longer wonders if the magician is going to make the ball reappear.
Han Solo: Okay, bad choice. Picture it as Carrot Top beating Ford for the lead supporting role in Cowboys Vs Aliens, then - a critically acclaimed well-beloved actor of both cowboys *and* aliens, versus Carrot Top.
Bachmann: Hey, I could see Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson getting past the initial casting call.