Below The Beltway

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Ron Paul On The Rachel Maddow Show

by Doug Mataconis @ 5:32 pm on October 30, 2008.

Ron Paul appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show last night and discussed the Presidential Election and the role of third parties in American politics:

Maddow asked Paul why he didn’t run as a third-party candidate and he brings up the familiar arguments about fundraising and ballot access problems which are largely correct, but Marc Gallagher thinks Paul doesn’t realize that he missed an opportunity:

What Paul doesn’t seem to realize is that his own candidacy on a Third Party/Independent ticket could have been a status quo breaker with the support he had.

Marc does have a point. The Libertarian Party offered Paul their 2008 nomination nearly a year ago and he refused it and stubbornly insisted on running a doomed-from-the-start campaign for the Republican nomination. While I generally agree with the idea of moving the Republican Party in a more libertarian direction, I think Paul would have had a far bigger impact on the political debate in 2008 if he had decided to ditch the GOP and run on a third-party ticket than he did by staying with the GOP and then endorsing a total nut job.