The Negative Ad Ron Paul Should Run

From the folks that brought us Obama girl:

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On the GOP YouTube Debate

1. Playing Devil's advocate for a minute, why is it such a big deal that a Hillary operative got to ask the Republican candidates a question without disclosing his affiliation? Why does this render his question worthless? Should we exclude anybody who's aligned with a campaign?

2. Some of the questions were silly—the introductory song, the Bible, the Confederate flag—but I actually thought many of them were excellent: Specific, pointed and interesting.

3. Anderson Cooper did a poor job moderating: He failed to stop Rudy and Romney from monopolizing the debate's first five minutes; he allowed McCain to attack Ron Paul on foreign policy during a question about the fair tax; and, by deciding which candidates got which questions, he turned potentially hard-hitting questions into softballs (Huckabee, the former minister, on the Bible; Duncan Hunter, whom the NRA rates an A+, on gun control; Thompson, a self-declared federalist, on banning abortion at the federal level).

4. On Fred: (1) Interesting video, but surely it speaks poorly of him that he used his time to attack others instead of even mentioning—let alone touting—himself. (2) ATR documents his hypocrisy in taking an anti-amnesty pledge—during the debate—but refusing to take a no-new-taxes pledge. (3) It's inexcusable that a self-proclaimed federalist couldn't name three government programs he'd remove or reduce.

5. Why can't CNN enlarge the videos on its big screen?

Update: Ed Morrisey fleshes out my first point:

Bad journalistic practices? Definitely yes. But does that negate the questions themselves? I don't think so. The CNN/YouTube format closely parallels that of the traditional town-hall forum. For the most part, attendees do not get vetted at these events either, nor should they. After all, while a primary usually involves voters of one party, the entire nation has a stake in the selection of the nominees. If Hillary Clinton held a town hall in my community, I should have an opportunity to question her about her positions on issues without pledging a loyalty oath to do so.

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The Good Old Ron Paul

From 1988, on the Morton Downey show, when Paul was running for president as a Libertarian:

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Ron Paul vs. Redstate

Three weeks after Redstate banned Ron Paul supporters, traffic to Paul's Web site continues to rise rapidly—attracting 350,000 page views a month, according to Compete.com—while Redstate's remains stuck below 100,000:

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"I Just Saved a Bunch of Money by Switching to Ron Paul"

© David Weigel

Update (3/25/08): Like what you read? Read more by subscribing to No Straw Men via RSS or e-mail.

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The Club for Growth Assesses Ron Paul

Highlights:

In defense of his support for earmarks, Rep. Paul took the if you can't beat 'em, join 'em position, arguing that "I don't think they should take our money in the first place. But if they take it, I think we should ask for it back."[32] This is a contradiction of Paul's self-proclaimed "opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution"[33]. . . .

When it comes to spending, he stands neither with the Republicans or the Democrats, but the taxpayers, often lambasting his own party for straying from the principles of small government. . . .

Unlike protectionists who deny the economic benefits of free-trade policies, Ron Paul embraces the importance of free trade, but lives in a dream world if he thinks free trade will be realized absent agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA. Paul himself argues that "tariffs are simply taxes on consumers,"[47] but by opposing these trade agreements, he is actively opposing a decrease in those taxes. While Paul's rhetoric is soundly pro-free trade, his voting record mirrors those of Congress's worst protectionists. . . .

[O]ften, Ron Paul opposes progress because, in his mind, the progress is not perfect. In these cases, although for very different reasons, Ron Paul . . . often . . . vot[es] against important, albeit imperfect, pro-growth legislation.

Ron Paul is, undoubtedly, ideologically committed to pro-growth limited government policies. But his insistence on opposing all but the perfect means that under a Ron Paul presidency we might never get a chance to pursue the good too.

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Ron Paul's Lousy Ads

So this is where that war chest is going? What a waste.

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How Ron Paul Justifies Earmarks

Last week, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) addressed a meeting of the obscure Robert Taft Club, which describes itself (very much like the America's Future Foundation) as "a loose organization of conservatives and libertarians in the Washington, D.C., area."

The standing-room audience gathered in the basement of the Boulevard Woodgrill (down the street from where I live in Clarendon), and irked by the parade of compliments gussied up as questions, I zinged the Christian constitutionalist about his paradoxical earmarking:



Transcript:

Q: Congressman, I have tremendous respect for you, but I was shocked to read, in a Reason magazine profile, that you actually stuff earmarks into appropriation bills, just like every other member of Congress. And I thought you were different, sir. You, of course, vote against the bill[s], but I was curious how you could justify stuffing earmarks, just like every other member of Congress...

A: I think the people that are critical of that don't understand the process.

Because to vote against an earmark doesn't save any money. That's the first issue.

And the second issue is, the spending decision goes to the executive branch, which is wrong. All spending decisions should be by the Congress. So I argue the case that the Congress should make these decisions, since voting against the earmarks, you know, won't do any good.

Now, as far as making the request, you're absolutely right: I vote against them all, so I've never voted for an earmark. You know, because I vote against all of them.

But to make the request, it's sort of like of you coming and asking for your Social Security check. I don't like the system, and I want to change it, but I don't deny your access to your representative.

So I think there is so much understanding about this earmark. It saves no money whatsoever. It emphasizes that you want to give the power to the executive branch and take it away from the responsibility of the Congress.

Now, if it's wasteful, that's a different story, and most of 'em are, and that's why I vote against the bill. So you can't say I voted for an earmark.

But I think I'm responsible for representing the people. To me, it's like taxing a tax credit or a tax deduction. I want to get rid of the income tax, but I'm still gonna give you all the tax credits possible, in order to get as much money as possible. So, to me, it's in that category.

(Thanks to Reason's Dave Weigel for video-taping the exchange and uploading it to YouTube.)

Update: Andy Roth points to a WSJ editorial titled, "Ron Paul's Earmarks":

After reporters started asking questions, the Congressman disclosed his requests this year for about $400 million worth of federal funding for no fewer than 65 earmarks. They include such urgent national wartime priorities as an $8 million request for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund shrimp-fishing research.

When we called Mr. Paul's office for an explanation, his spokesperson offered up something worthy of pork legends Tom DeLay or Senator Robert C. Byrd: "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked," the spokesman said. "What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public—and I have to presume it's not by accident."

Update (10/28/07): James Joyner links to a CQ article that contains a succincter justification:

Still, why play along by earmarking federal spending? Because a crackdown on earmarks, he says, would only grant the executive branch more control over where the money goes. The total amount of spending wouldn’t change. “There’s nothing wrong with designating where the money goes,” Paul says—so long as the earmark is “up front and everyone knows about it,” rather than having it slipped in at the last minute with no scrutiny.

Of course, this sidesteps the real question: Paul claims to vote for nothing that the Constitution doesn't explicitly authorize. Where does the Constitution authorize $3 million to test imported shrimp for antibiotics, or $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp, or $2.3 million for shrimp fishing research, or $4.5 million to study the effects of the health risks of vanadium?

Update (11/6/07): The Club for Growth calls a spade a spade:

In defense of his support for earmarks, Rep. Paul took the if you can't beat 'em, join 'em position, arguing that "I don't think they should take our money in the first place. But if they take it, I think we should ask for it back." This is a contradiction of Paul's self-proclaimed "opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution."

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The Daily Digest

The Everglades

You gotta love America, where a feeling of financial inferiority keeps millionaires in Silicon Valley awake at night and toiling away for 12 hours during the day.

Ron Paul finally learns how to tailor his message to his audience. To the Ames crowd, he preaches babies ("Let me assure you, as an OB doctor . . . that life begins at conception. . . . [T]hat horrible ruling[,] Roe v. Wade, must be reversed") and guns ("I think 9/11, quite frankly, could have been prevented if we had had a lot more respect for the Second Amendment").

It's not exactly Myers-Briggs, but Owen Ullmann captures the competing mindsets of those who toil at the White House: "The high-energy, supercompetitive, and ultra-dedicated hotshots who wind up working at the side of a U.S. President can be divided into two camps. There are the ideological zealots and romantic dreamers who see a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reshape society to reflect their moral code. Sure, they love the perks and prestige, but results are what count. Then there are the self-absorbed opportunists who claim to be driven by a call to public duty. But they spend most of their time grabbing for that golden ticket to fame and fortune."

Esquire profiles John Edwards. Snippet: "Edwards served one term as a U.S. senator, 12 seasons as a rec-league soccer coach. He reads the sports pages first every morning, calls his wife at least four times a day, eats Cobb salads with diet soda for lunch, runs four to five miles on a treadmill whenever he's able, though he'd prefer to run outside."

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The Daily Digest

Ayn Rand novels convert young people into libertarians. Departments of Motor Vehicles convert our parents. Dan Mitchell echoes Radley Balko on the urgent need to reform this bureaucratic no-man's-land.

Here's something rare: voluntary transparency in a campaign. To wit: Mike Huckabee has posted audio archives of his blogger conference calls, among other media events, on his Web site.

Christopher Caldwell profiles Ron Paul for the NYTM.

Having been stripped, nearly 40 years ago, of his only tangible responsibility, to oversee the Public Health Service, the surgeon general has little or no authority to coordinate the federal government’s public health activities. His office is routinely politicized, and he reports not to secretary of Health and Human Services, but to the assistant secretary. The result, argues Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council, is that the position "today has become mostly one of a bully pulpit to serve as a federally funded advocate." The solution: abolish the office.

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The Daily Digest

Hott4Hill Featuring Taryn Southern

Emergency eye surgery has forced Jim Gilmore to suspend his presidential campaign.

Social networking for politicos? Check out ePolitico.com, coming soon.

Todd Ziegler identifies and lauds the novelty of Ron Paul's Web site: "Interestingly for the social candidate, his blog doesn’t even allow comments. Instead, it encourages visitors to discuss/interact with the blog content on social sites like Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Facebook. He seems to deliberately avoid building a community on his own site. Due to this, supporters have no choice but to organize elsewhere. . . . [T]he use of these free tools is done out of necessity. But the strategy here is also very sound: by not giving supporters much to do on his own site he maximizes the amount of noise they make in other venues. It is the perfect approach for an insurgent candidate like Paul."

Speaking of Paul, Wonkette pens a memo to his campaign manager: "There’s no need to have him prance around like John Edwards, obviously, but one good suit (with two pairs of pants, two shirts and three ties) and two $150 pairs of decent dress shoes would go a long way towards making your candidate look less like a vacuum-cleaner repairman." Similarly, Mike Gravel, the Ron Paul of Democrats, who donned khakis and a blazer at his party's last debate, could use a visit from Lisa Butcher and Mica Paris.

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The Daily Digest

The FEC demonstrates what the federal government can do with new media: check out its new Presidential Campaign Finance map, which aggregates, by state and then zip code, individual contributions to each presidential candidate. (New York and Southern California rank first and second.) Like Microsoft Word, the map is detailed, but in a layered way that is user-friendly. (BTW, the National Science Foundation, another executive-branch agency, also sports a cutting-edge Web site.)

The NYT reviews the lucky few who have parlayed their blogging hobby into a paid profession.

Matt Lewis conjectures why Ron Paul won't shut up about Iraq: "If you're a conservative who supports the president's war, you have nine candidates to choose from. But if you're a conservative who believes that going into Iraq was a mistake, Ron Paul is the only game in town."

Meanwhile, Paul is coming around, finally, if awkwardly, on the importance of sound-bite messaging. "I'm for the individual," he asserts. "I'm not for the government."

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The Daily Digest

Phillip Wellman, a minor-league manager for the Mississippi Braves, puts Brazilian soccer fans to shame.

To do tomorrow: attend the "The Future of Political Communications: Connecting with Young Voters" conference, at GWU.

Harnessing a day-long exclusive, the NYT peels back the layers behind the most-prized possession on the Internet: how Google search works.

Patrick Ruffini is back, and he hits the ground running. His latest invention, the 2008 Presidential Wire Videowall, "aggregates all the latest YouTube videos about the ‘08 candidates in a full screen total immersion experience."

Cato's Michael Tanner has invited Michael Moore to debate America's health-care system, apropos of Moore's new film, Sicko. Don't hold your breath. (A footnote: Tanner misquotes Time's Richard Corliss, who wrote: "The upside of this populist documentary is that there are no policy wonks, crunching numbers and reducing patients' anguish to sterile statistics. The downside: There are no policy wonks, crunching numbers and saying soberly how much a national health care plan would cost U.S. citizens. In a two-hour movie, Moore could have taken a couple minutes to tote up the expected tab.")

Micah Sifry analyzes the online rise of Ron Paul.

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The Daily Digest

Joe Scarborough has an Imus moment

With a new blog by Marc Ambinder, formerly of the Hotline, the Atlantic Online continues to burgeon wisely (as I predicted).

Dick Armey is guest-blogging at Swampland, though, like most old-timers, he hasn't yet realized the importance of hyperlinking.

Another senator has placed a secret hold on legislation to increase transparency—specifically, electronic disclosure of Senate campaign finance reports—but Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, preferring darkness to sunlight, won't say who. Check out What's McConnell Hiding?.com.

Fred Thompson launches his official Web site, while Ron Paul revamps his.

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The Daily Digest

Are you a libertarian? Here's a quick and dirty test: read this short essay on the state of American politics by Cato president Ed Crane. If you find yourself nodding vigorously, then welcome to the party that never ends.

Peter Suderman nails the paradox of Ron Paul: "One might think that Paul, as a pro-life, anti-amnesty, government-cutting economic conservative would find a welcome home in conservative circles, but. . . . [t]he pragmatic concerns of everyday politics hold little interest for Paul, who puts determined ideological purism ahead of all else."

Accompany Rudy on the stump via this stellar and insightful profile from the NYT's Michael Powell.

Conservatives often cite the ACLU's advocacy of abortion rights and neutrality on gun rights as proof that the organization is hostile to the right. These are eminently fair points, but here's a more thoughtful argument, from a board member of the Massachusetts ACLU affiliate: "Once the nation's leading civil liberties group and a reliable defender of everyone's speech rights, the ACLU is being transformed into just another liberal human-rights group that reliably defends the rights of liberal speakers. This transformation is gradual, unacknowledged and not readily apparent, since evidence of it lies mainly in cases the ACLU does not take. . . . But a review of recent free-speech press releases turns up only a handful of cases in which ACLU state affiliates defended the rights of conservative, antigay or otherwise politically incorrect speakers. And lately the national organization has been remarkably quiet in several important free-speech cases and controversies."

Update (6/2): Steven Shapiro, the ACLU's legal director, responds, claiming (1) that the ACLU is currently challenging in several states laws that ban picketing by anti-gay groups at military funerals, and (2) that the ACLU has drafted a brief, due in federal appeals court next month, supporting a high-school student who was barred from wearing an anti-gay T shirt.

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The Daily Digest

More evidence of McCain's Obey-esque temper.

Jonathan Martin pinpoints what's wrong with the GOP's seven dwarfs: Huckabee; Brownback; Hunter; Gilmore; Thompson; Tancredo and Paul.

All politicians airbrush their resumes, but Hillary's airbrush is particularly amusing. In 2005, she returned a $5,000 campaign donation from Wal-Mart, citing "serious differences" with its practices. Yet she remained "largely silent," according to former directors and executives, when she sat on the company's board, from 1986 to 1992.

A few months ago I bet a colleague that Al Gore will not run for president. In short, the reputational risks and overwhelming stress of a campaign far outweigh uprooting his comfortable, lucrative and joyous post-political life. Although old Time hand Eric Pooley pines for a Gore resurgence, his cover story this week bears me out.

Dave Weigel tries to calm down Michelle Malkin, who is forced to retract a claim that Ron Paul "allied himself" with groups who believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

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Beware Internet Polls

In general, I distrust polls. But I really distrust those those don't even pretend to scientific accuracy, as by distinguishing between likely vs. registered voters, screening for people who cannot legally vote, disclosing the margin of error, using neutral language, and so on. The only thing the latter are good for, as Jesse Walker ably explains, is to measure how devoted a following someone has.

This is why, when in 2002 the Modern Library announced its list of the 100 greatest novels and invited online readers to submit their picks, two groups rose up: the Randians and the Scientologists. Where the official top three consisted of Ulysses, The Great Gatsby and A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, the people's house picked Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and Battlefield Earth.

Of course, there's always some cheating (as in using a single computer to vote multiple times). But as Jesse observes of Ron Paul, who's been racking up victory after victory in various online polls, "The congressman does well even when the multi-voters are ferreted out."

The reason for such success, as with the Modern Library survey, is the Internet, which from its inception has been a boon for the marginalized (pornographers being the obvious example). Such people are usually geographically separate, but in a classic display of supply meeting demand, the Web allows them to pool their resources.

The final point is the icing on the cake. As Jesse puts it, those, like Little Green Footballs and Pajamas Media, who have banned Paul from their polls, would do well to "ponder the point of offering a system so easily gamed." Or, in the case of Fox News host Carl Cameron, who questioned his employer's text-messaging poll, in which Paul placed a solid second, they might "admit that if the votes for Paul didn't mean much, the same was true of the remainder of the results."

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Beware YouTube Statistics

The invaluable techPresident points out an interesting and important distinction as to why Ron Paul's YouTube surge isn't what it appears. In short, whereas most of us look at the number of channel views, the genuine gauge of a candidate's popularity is the total number of views of all the videos within his account.

YouTube doesn't automatically display the latter, so tP created a snazzy, automatically updated chart.

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Why Ron Paul Is Bad for Himself and Good for the GOP

Here’s the now-infamous exchange (parts of which I'm omitting, signified by ellipses, to get to its essence) among Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), Rudy Giuliani and moderator Wendell Goler, during the most recent debate for the Republican presidential candidates:

Paul: They attack us because we’ve been over there. [For instance,] we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East. . . .

Goler: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?

Paul: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it. . . .

Giuliani: I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us he didn’t really mean that.

Paul: I believe very sincerely that the C.I.A. is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. . . . If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there.

For these arguments, many are now clamoring for Ron Paul's exclusion from future debates. This is not only unhealthy, but also sets a dangerous precedent. (What's next: baring a Republican who supports gay marriage?)

Dissent—in a debate of all places—invigorates discussion. And since Paul is the only one, out of 10 candidates, to oppose the war, his views merit inclusion.

Of course, not all dissent is worthy. Dissent for dissent's sake is a waste of time, which is precious with only 90 minutes and 10 people. But dissent that's grounded in conservative principles ("war is the health of the state"), or even some evidence, deserves a hearing.

Indeed, the idea that the U.S. invited 9/11 is not as radical as one might think. This idea, at least the nuanced, scholarly school of it, does not blame the United States for the attacks, but recognizes that it's both who we are ("They hate us for our freedom") and what we do ("We've been in the Middle East") that fans the terrorist flames.

Even if Paul sounds like him, Michael Moore he is not.

But if he's not a kook, then who is he? Well, some of his ideas are kooky, but the bigger problem is that he's a poor communicator, who suffers from a rhetorical Napoleon complex. In short, he's his own worst enemy.


Even a fool realizes that a format where you’re given one minute per question is probably the worst place to articulate perhaps the most controversial thing you could say to an American audience (you have blood on your hands for the deadliest attack on American soil in the nation’s history), especially one of Southern conservatives to whom the war on terror trumps everything. To wit, Paul’s above remarks were unnecessary (yes, he was baited, but he took the bait) and inappropriate (they require far too much time to explain, let alone convince someone of).

Since it’s fair to assume that a 10-term member of Congress is familiar with the cardinal rule of marketing—know your audience—the only explanation I can think of for these follies is that Paul likes controversy. And, to give him his due, as a going-nowhere candidate, he may be right to exploit the P.T. Barnum rule of publicity: all press is good press. If nothing else, his confrontation with Giuliani (it’s playing on YouTube as Ron vs. Rudy) has heightened his profile.

But Paul is seemingly oblivious to the alternative: instead of trying to ride his antiwar bona fides, he should emphasize his domestic agenda.

For example, when asked by both Giuliani and Goler to disabuse those who thought he had just likened Americans to cold-blooded mass murderers, instead of returning to theories of blowback, he might have simply said “No, I am not,” and pivoted back to why the Iraq war is hurting our national security.

What Ron Paul offers are deeply consistent, principled views on what the Constitution authorizes and does not authorize. Among Republicans hungry for a candidate who not only believes but also acts on fiscally conservative principles, this is his unique selling point.

Yet in listening to him, you'd never know this. You'd never know that he has never voted to raise taxes. Or that he has never voted for an unbalanced budget. Or that he has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership. Or that he has never voted to raise congressional pay. Why? Because Ron Paul is lousy at self-promotion—when, ironically, he has the most to promote.

So, instead of attacking Giuliani and asking him to apologize, both of which only fuel the perception that he is out of touch, Paul must focus more on himself. He's already nailed showmanship. Now he needs to master salesmanship.

Update (6/1/07): Finally, Paul declares, "It’s preposterous to say that I’m blaming America. That’s a complete distortion, like blaming a person for being murdered. No, I’m looking at the motives and reasons that elicit such hatred and willingness to kill."

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The YouTube Primary

For my money, YouTube has always been the most important of all the Web 2.0 technologies. Accordingly (and since YouTube doesn't offer such information, which it could easily do in real time, as opposed to the static statistics below), I've decided to compile a list comparing the number of subscribers each candidate has on his YouTube channel (as of 11:57 AM EST):

Republicans

1. Ron Paul: 2,153 (and rapidly growing)

2. Mitt Romney: 1,889

3. Rudy Giuliani: 1,277

4. John McCain: 1,185

5. Duncan Hunter: 249

6. Mike Huckabee: 146 [1]

7. Tom Tancredo: 136

8. Sam Brownback: 65

9. Jim Gilmore: 27 [2]

Democrats

1. Barack Obama: 5,386

2. John Edwards: 2,673

3. Hillary Clinton: 1,849 [3]

4. Bill Richardson: 657

5. Joe Biden: 557

6. Christopher Dodd: 212

7. Mike Gavel [4]

[1] I couldn't find Huckabee's account via YouTube.com, so I had to Google "Mike Huckabee YouTube."
[2] Gilmore's YouTube presence is the least of his online headaches.
[3] I couldn't find Hillary's account via YouTube.com, and Googling it didn't work either. Fortunately, HillaryClinton.com features a prominent link.
[4] Don't even ask.

We've long known that Obama's newness, youth and charisma attracts Generation YouTube (hence his crushing lead among all the candidates), so what surprised me was the dramatic decline between the first-tier candidates and the second-tier ones.

The exception, of course, is Ron Paul, whose blog this morning touted the news that within the past 24 hours, he's surpassed Mitt Romney for YouTube's #1 spot among the Republicans.

Equally exciting: RonPaul2008.com is undergoing a slight but noticeable and urgently needed upgrade. Campaign Press Secretary Jesse Benton tells me:

When Ron decided to declare his candidacy on March 12, we had to move quickly to get a functional Web site up and running. We have listened to volumes of feedback and are working to improve our site. Most importantly, we have placed our e-campaign tools in visible, functional locations on our homepage. Our design team and our director of e-campaigns, Justine Lam, will continue to make adjustments to enhance aesthetics and make the site even more user friendly.

Update (5/17): It was only a matter of time. In partnership with TubeMogul, techPresident has created some snazzy charts that are updated every day. They also boast equally excellent charts for MySpace. Wow!

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