Columnist: When all else fails, blame the Paulbots
Andreatta Geerdes writes an interesting column for Washington Times Communities on the paradoxical pleas coming from the establishment GOP. On the one hand, they dismissed the liberty movement with derision and cheating: they couldn’t override, insult, and run out the Paul supporters fast enough. But now, on the other hand, they are begging and pleading these fringe kooks not to split the vote. “We don’t need you and won’t respect you, but . . . We need you and can’t live without you!”
Ms. Geerdes notes,
You remember Ron Paul — that old Republican guy who ran for president. His non-interventionist foreign policy ideas were considered kooky during the Republican debates but have since landed him interviews on Fox.
He is the guy who barely cracked 10 percent in the [popular vote] primaries but managed to attract tens of thousands of people, from all walks of life, to his rallies during the primary season. People lined up to hear Paul speak about free-market economics and Constitutional government.
Yet his lively supporters were dismissed as “Paulbots” and “Paultards.” . . .
Various commentators are pleading with the Paulians (and other libertarian and Constitutionally minded voters) not to split the vote and give Obama four more years. . . .
[I]sn’t it curious that after being ignored by the media and abused by the GOP, the Paulians now are being courted (or harangued) because the GOP needs their support. . . .
One wonders: If Romney is the ideal moderate candidate who can attract hordes of independents to the GOP, why does he need the fringe Paulian/libertarian vote in order to win the presidency?
Until now, the media have ignored these “liberty” voters, presumably because they are a minority in the country. But now we discover that they are numerous enough to swing the election by sitting it out or voting third party.
If this is true, why hasn’t Romney vigorously tried to attract these voters? . . .
For example, why won’t Romney oppose the unconstitutional provisions for indefinite detention in the NDAA, or support the “Audit the Fed” bill currently being held up in the Senate by liberal leader Harry Reid? Why is he more on the side of far-left Reid than far-right Ron Paul? Or what about the invasive “grope-fest” that is the TSA?
Ms. Geerdes notes, “I know Obama doesn’t espouse these views [in favor of liberty]. When will Mitt Romney?”
If the Republican Party wants the liberty movement vote, it will absolutely have to take these positions seriously. Since it continues to take neither the positions nor the movement seriously, we must assume it really isn’t sincere about either liberty or the liberty vote. Or worse: it’s simply confused (very likely). Or even worse yet: the statist right would rather throw the election to the statist left before seeing it fall to those who want real change towards a smaller state and limited government.
This seems even more likely since neither the leftist media nor the quasi-pseudo-right media would give Paul much airtime—and even less positive airtime—during the primaries. When it appeared he would win Iowa, both went into overdrive trying to savage him. From this it seems the great divide in American politics is not Democrat-Republican, but Statist-Liberty with bot D and R standing squarely under the Statist tent.
And while liberty seems to be by far in the minority, it is actually far less so than is perceived (because of he media). Because the mainstream media would not cover Paul’s campaign in the way it covered its pet candidates, the general public saw far less of the dozens of times Paul drew crowds of thousands—unheard of for primary campaigns—while the Santorums and Romneys spoke to rooms “full” of twenty or thirty people. No, far more of the country supports liberty as Paul preached it than the media would ever let you realize; but the media and the major parties knows it’s true, and so the GOP is now begging those drove of people to please, please, support their anointed one. The Party knows for certain that these numbers can indeed sway the election.
In this the Party both tip its hand as to the strength of the liberty movement and proves how much it underestimates the convictions of those very people. These people are not going to budge an inch away from their principled stand for liberty—certainly not to support someone who refuses to stand at all for the things they stand for. And certainly not when that person has kicked, put down, insulted, cheated, derided, name-called, belittled, and spat upon them and their beliefs in an effort specifically to marginalize them and their influence in the Party.
The Liberty Movement would never get in bed with that guy to begin with, let alone beg him to respect us the next morning.
Four the next four years, “Paulbots” will either be saying “See, we told you gridlock would prevail,” or “See, we told you he was not much different.” Either way, they will have been right to believe what they believe, and to stand for it firmly.