The Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner has an excellent essay out today about why Ron Paul’s candidacy matters to future of the Republican Party, even though he probably won’t win:
Most of the current Republican candidates fall squarely into the big-government camp. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney imposed a Hillary Clinton-style health plan in his state and not only supports No Child Left Behind but calls for the federal government to buy a laptop computer for every child born in America. He thinks we should increase farm price supports.
John McCain has an admirable record as a fiscal conservative, but he shows a disturbing predilection for making a federal issue of every personal pet peeve from steroids in baseball to airplane service quality. He embraces heavily regulatory environmental policies that hurt businesses and cost jobs, such as expanding the Clean Water and Clean Air acts and implementing the Kyoto Protocols, and compulsory national service. More important, he is also the principal author of a campaign finance bill that severely restricts political speech.
Rudy Giuliani’s record on civil liberties suggests he views the Constitution as an afterthought.
Fred Thompson talks a good game, but his record suggests he is closer to McCain-lite.
Mike Huckabee may be an even bigger spender than President Bush, and he never met a tax increase he didn’t like.
Thus, when Ron Paul talks about returning to limited constitutional government, a great many Republican primary voters sit up and take notice. For voters hungering for a return to the party of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan rather than the party of George W. Bush, Paul’s rhetoric is a breath of fresh air.
No, Rep. Paul is not likely to be our next president. But he is delivering a message that the other candidates would do well to heed. Is anyone listening?
As I’ve noted before, the fact that the one candidate who comes closest to the free-market, small government, individual liberty ideas that the Republican Party claims to stand for is only now coming close to cracking 10% in the polls is as much a reflection on the state of the Republican Party as it is on the candidate himself, or his campaign. I don’t completely agree with everything Ron Paul says, and his supports often annoy the heck out of me, but I’m hoping he does as well as he can and sends a message that the Republican Party can’t help but pay attention to.
BTB, I love your blog and love your real conservative attitude. Your question hit the nail on the head. If the GOP overwhelmingly rejects RP’s message of limited government and individual liberty and responsibility, it says more about theat 90% of the GOP than about him!
[...] Party. One can see that just from our various opinions on the GOP Presidential field (Doug seems partial to Ron Paul; Riley supports Fred Thompson; while my man is Duncan Hunter. That we can all agree on the danger [...]
Actually, every single one of the Republican candidates leans libertarian in some way or another, two of them explicitly so – Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson.
Of course, Anarchists who pretend to be libertarians have to make it seem like the GOP is not at all libertarian, so they throw around phrases, like “Rudy is a Fascist,” or “Fred Thompson is no friend of free markets,” or “Mitt Romney supports Big Government health care.”
Give me a break? Do you honestly think that anybody buys that Anarchist propoganda line?
There’s only one single GOP candidate who is Pro-Big Government, and that’s Huckabee.
All the rest are pretty damned good. Not perfect. But libertarian in a broad sense.
And we should be thankful that the Republican Party has moved away from the Religious Conservative 1980s and 90s so far in the libertarian direction of today.
Because Ron Paul’s message is not libertarian.
All he talks about is Anti-War this, Anti-War that. And that’s entirely opposite of libertarianism. If you support Islamo-Fascism, even as a defacto supporter of Islamo-Fascism, you are essentially supporting big government.
Yes, Ron Paul used to be limited government. He’s changed a great deal sing the 1990s.
Eric,
There’s two problems with your assertion about guys like Giuliani.
First, after looking at his record as Mayor and US Attorney. It’s just plain not true. He has little respect for civil liberties — you know, things like that annoying 4th Amendment. As for foreign policy, he’s hired neocon nutjob in chief Norman Podhortz as his foreign policy adviser, which suggests to me that he hasn’t learned anything from the mistakes of the Iraq War.
Second, given the differences between rhetoric and reality when it comes to the way Republicans have actually governed , why should I believe in the ones who say their libertarian rather than the one who has actually voted an almost consistent libertarian record since he first came to Congress ?
Ron Paul’s not perfect, but he’s a damn sight better than anyone else running when it comes to principles.
Eric, I visited your site, and I like a lot of what’s there. But to assert that Giuliani and Thompson are libertarian, but Paul is not? That is an impossible statement.