Ron Paul's Liberal Honey

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

cross posted at

GreeneWave.com

   Now that everyone’s feet have hit the ground and Romney has reasserted his “front runner status” (as the mainstream media enjoys to browbeat) some like Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard are musing about another Santorum surge; praying, hoping for Bush 2.0.  There is only one problem.  Although the GOP is potentially dethroning one of the most radical presidencies since FDR or LBJ, as Kristol laments, their Florida primary turnout was actually down 12% from 2008. 

How can Barak Hussein Obama, the Premier of Polarization, not light a fire under the GOP?  They better figure it out.  In Florida, Mitt Romney may have been able to outspend Newt Gingrich by a 4 to 1 margin; that will not be the case against Barack’s billion-dollar war chest.  Romney will need a lot more than millions in milquetoast rhetoric to revitalize this evidently anemic party. 

To be fair, this may have merely been the Florida GOP, Iowa’s turnout after all was record breaking, but was that because of Romney or something else?  Maybe it was the ugliness of the campaign that kept Floridians at home, but that most assuredly will not change as the Democrats plan to make this election more about character than content.  Perhaps it was the nature of the caucus. 

While the Florida Slugfest was grabbing national attention Ron Paul as usual was quiet, but diligent.  He was the first to release ads in Minnesota and Nevada and able to stay clear of the mud he was left alone to continue his long-term caucus strategy, which is proving fruitful regardless of the what the Media Masters tell you.

Ron Paul claims he is 3^rd in delegate count and supported: here and here even though the MSM has him in 4^th: here, here and here.  Why the discrepancy?  Free information sites like Wikipedia and The Green Papers offer a little more insight into the fog that often surrounds the U.S. electoral system. 

There are, for example, differences in “soft” versus “hard” delegates and “pledged” or “bound” delegates versus “unpledged” or “not bound” delegates. It essentially boils down to reporting projected versus formally pledged delegates.  The MSM prefers the latter.  In the end it’s more than just the ballot box, as Politico’s James Hohmann points out:

The primary and caucus “…states don’t award delegates on the day they hold votes, instead apportioning delegates at local party meetings, where Paul’s camp believes its superior organization can help it capture a majority that their candidate may not have won outright on election day.”

Spontaneous organization and zeal as I have mentioned is the bread and butter of Ron Paul’s Guerilla Grassroots.

            As the Christian Science Monitor points out Ron Paul with this odd strategy may in fact win more delegates this coming month than Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich combined!  The reason?  It is what Romney, Gingrich and Santorum all lack and what Ron Paul is in large supply – liberal honey.    

As evidenced in Iowa, Ron Paul pulls from the top of the political spectrum.  This may seem odd to hear, however, many now understand there is a false dichotomy afoot when someone tries to paint another as either left or right.  It is why we see Americans leaving the GOP and Democratic parties in droves.  Fundamentally the real dichotomy is authority versus liberty, everything else is retail politics.

Ron Paul is above the fray in this respect pulling and converting ostensibly progressive and conservative independents into his libertarian coalition of sustainable governance.  The most attractive characteristic of Paul’s liberal honey is it’s cheap enough for a conservative, but sweet enough for a liberal. 

Take ending the War on Drugs for instance.  It promotes personal responsibility with respect to treatment and education while simultaneously emancipating billions of taxpayer dollars dedicated to massive incarceration, property seizures and interdiction from the grip of big government.  Legalizing and regulating drugs like alcohol and tobacco as they once were would serve the single biggest blow to drug cartels and inner city gangs sustained by the black market’s inflated prices.  Moreover, the Drug War disproportionally affects minorities whom notoriously side with Democrats.  Ron Paul’s plan fundamentally undermines this entitlement.

            Liberal honey most importantly allows a left leaning voter to swallow some of Ron Paul’s economic medicine some view as austere.  His stance on the Federal Reserve for example is as bipartisan as it gets, over 75% of voters want a full audit of the Fed.  The idea there is a coalition of private banks dictating how much money to print for themselves, leading to trickle down inflation, is appalling to most Americans.  Ron Paul retains nearly exclusive rights to this idea – End The Fed.

            Local governance looms large in our political future too.   The famous liberal idiom “think globally, act locally” is about to be fulfilled and added to the libertarian lexicon – “think globally, govern locally.”  For far too long central planning has concentrated the power of government in Washington D.C. at the expense of our states, counties and townships.  Ron Paul’s efforts to allow the states to decide on abortion, gay marriage and education allowing everyone to more easily vote with their feet by rekindling our 50 democratic laboratories.

            While the anti-war movement was eviscerated after the election of our Peace President Barack Obama, Ron Paul’s plans to close our foreign bases and return our troops home resonates with independents, paleo-conservatives and progressives alike.  Its police state ancillary, the technological and industrial blowback from our militant adventurism, is on Ron Paul’s chopping block too.  Ending the TSA, the Department of Homeland Security, fusion centers, and curtailing Top Secret America appeals to social libertarians and liberals alike.

          When it comes to a head to head between Barack Obama and Ron Paul it would be a gas to see a 74 year old man run a hard right on economics all the while luring Obama’s base away from under him with all natural liberal honey.

Newt is Right, Time to Shoot The Moon!

 

            Newt Gingrich’s bold new idea, recently revealed at a stump speech in Florida, of seeding the Moon with American astro-colonists is actually not all that crazy.  What is crazy is asking taxpayers to continue to spearhead space exploration for another 53 years; on this point he is as usual – wrong.

In last night’s Jacksonville debate, former Governor Mitt Romney seemed to agree, I know Ron Paul does.  Romney, however, merely saw a golden opportunity to mock Newt for his outlandish idea and to weigh in on it as a former businessman:

“If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say: ‘You’re fired!’” Romney boasted.

Only one problem, there are a lot of businessmen whom disagree with the former Bain Capital CEO.  Evidently Romney doesn’t know mitt about interstellar business.

Sir Walter Branson founder of Virgin galactic has kind of a knack for creating value and he sees a lot of it in space.  For example, Branson just completed the world’s first international spaceport in New Mexico and will soon shuttle wealthy space enthusiasts into low earth orbit. 

Virgin Galactic isn’t the only celestial startup, Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nevada aims to create orbiting luxury hotels and SpaceX has developed one of the first operational private space capsules called the Dragon.  For a surprising list of private space companies and their ideas for the future look, here.

            Newt’s reason for bringing up a moon base makes a lot of sense.  Evidently Florida’s Space Coast, a community heavily reliant on high tech spending, is hurting more than the rest of the country, treading water at 12% unemployment.  While I’m not necessarily a fan of some of Planet Newt’s ideas namely his love affair with geoengineering, what he refers to as “cheap” market-based approaches to anthropogenic climate change, he might be getting warm on this one.

            It is time to emancipate the U.S. from the U.N. “Space Treaty” we signed in 1967 in the midst of the Cold War and explore the final frontier!  Why can’t start colonizing the moon under a “northwest ordinance” and reignite the idea of manifest destiny?  Why can’t the moon be our 51^st state?  Are we to extend the same concept to the entire cosmos?  Do we have to become One World before we step off this rock?  If we wait there is a lot to lose.

            Gingrich wrote a pretty straightforward book a few years back: Drill Here, Drill Now.  In that vein Newt is for once consistent, a Moon base would be a colossal job creator.  NASA, however, probably shouldn’t build it even though they’re in talks with Russia for a joint venture to do so.  If Florida’s Space Coast want’s jobs they’ll find it in companies like Shackelton Energy Co. which seeks to extricate fuels like plutonium-238 and helium-3 by transforming the moon into a interstellar gas station.  Gingrich should write another book after he loses the election: Drill There, Drill Soon.

            Barack Obama deserves some kudos too.  Although Obama receives his due ration of ridicule I would like to thank him for ending the space shuttle program as it was because he highlighted for Americans the fact we don’t need government to be inventive, curious, or passionate when it comes to space travel.  When everyone was afraid we’d be hitch hiking on Russian and Chinese ships I said Goodbye NASA, Hello Space Age.  Finally the monkey is off our back.  Private companies might not be in it “For the Benefit of All” as goes the NASA motto, but their work will benefit all.