Republican 2012 Presidential Nominee

[Langdon Algur]

i dislike Romney, his political party, and probably his dog too but seriously let's try leaning a little closer to the center of the spectrum. It may be possible that a dog may have to urinate/defficate in the span of 12 hours . . .

[key2thecup]

Last Night:

Ron Paul strongly defends anti-war policies

(Reuters) - Presidential hopeful Ron Paul staged a strong defense of his anti-war views on Thursday in an outburst on foreign policy that might lose him support from fellow Republicans.

Paul came into the debate rising in the polls, admired by many Republicans in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire for his conservatism on fiscal issues and criticism of big government.

But in the last debate before Iowans vote on January 3, the Texas congressman might have crossed a line with Republican voters when in a war of words with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Paul accused his fellow Republicans of wanting to follow Iraq with another "useless" war.

Paul stated that he would not go to war with Iran if there was proof the country had developed a nuclear weapon, leading Bachmann and others to pounce.

"My fear is it's another Iraq coming," Paul said. "There's a lot of war propaganda going on."

Bachmann, trailing in the polls, seized on Paul's controversial foreign policy views, going for the jugular in Paul's most vulnerable area with Republican voters.

"I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one we just heard from Ron Paul," Bachmann said.

"The reason why I would say that is because we know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon. They will use it to wipe our friend Israel off the map, and they would use it against the United States of America."

PAUL HOLDS FAST

Paul, who is among the top three favorites to win the Iowa caucuses, held fast to his argument warning that "the danger is really us overreacting."

"You're trying to dramatize this that we have to go and treat Iran like we've treated Iraq," Paul said. "You cannot solve these problems with war."

The audience booed Paul, cheering on Bachmann.

Bachmann pointed to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that suggested Iran could be nearing nuclear capabilities.

Iran could soon begin sensitive atomic activities in an underground facility deep inside a mountain, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, a move that would increase the stakes in a stand-off with big powers demanding Tehran curb such work.

The United States and Israel, Iran's arch-adversaries, have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the long-running nuclear dispute, which has the potential to spark a wider conflict in the Middle East. Iran denies seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

Paul, who wants to reduce U.S. involvement in the world to cut the budget deficit at home, suggesting the report was flimsy at best.

"There is no U.N. report that said that," Paul said. "That is totally wrong on what you just said. That is not true. They produced information that led you to believe that. They have no evidence."

Paul spokesman Gary Howard said after the debate that Paul's views will not cost him because voters already know where he stands on foreign policy.

"People know his views, and he's polling top three," Howard said. "His support is solid. He doesn't lose votes once he's got them."

Howard said that "people always misconstrue his positions," and that while Paul is for a strong national defense, he is not in favor of starting wars "out of the blue."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/16/us-usa-campaign-paul-idUSTRE7BD1TN20111216

[The Situation]

I cannot believe that there are people as crazy as this who can potentially become president of the USA.

We know without a shadow of a doubt Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map. And they've stated that they will use it against the United States of America.

Their mission is to extend jihad around the world and establish a global caliphate

[kw11333]

The ONLY republican candidate who has made any sense is Ron Paul.

[The Situation]

Watch Romney get pwned by this vet.

[The Situation]

Ron Paul was one of the very few people with the foresight to see how the government and corporate business practices were leading to a bubble burst.

Government Mortgage Schemes Distort the Housing Market Congressman Ron Paul U.S. House of Representatives July 16, 2002

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act. This legislation restores a free market in housing by repealing special privileges for housing-related government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). These entities are the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie), and the National Home Loan Bank Board (HLBB). According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone.

One of the major government privileges granted these GSEs is a line of credit to the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out these GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps them attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a massive unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.

The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase the debt of housing-related GSEs. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.

Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges of Fannie, Freddie, and HLBB have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

However, despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policies of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.

Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.

No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to the GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope my colleagues will stand up for American taxpayers and investors by cosponsoring the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=323&Itemid=60

[unbridled_id]

Ron Paul is a glue horse.

[key2thecup]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMUZIVYuluc

[key2thecup]

IOWA GOV: IGNORE PAUL WIN

Will Ron Paul kill the caucuses?

SIOUX CITY, IOWA

The alarms are sounding in Iowa.

Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

In spin rooms, bar rooms and online forums, the what-to-do-about-Paul conversation has become pervasive as polls show him at or near the top here just weeks before the January 3rd vote.

Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.

“It would make the caucuses mostly irrelevant if not entirely irrelevant,” said Becky Beach, a longtime Iowa Republican who helped Presidents Bush 41 and Bush 43 here. “It would have a very damaging effect because I don’t think he could be elected president and both Iowa and national Republicans wouldn’t think he represents the will of voters.”

What especially worries Iowa Republican regulars is the possibility that Paul could win here on January 3rd with the help of Democrats and independents who change their registration to support the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman but then don’t support the GOP nominee next November.

“I don’t think any candidate perverting the process in that fashion helps [the caucuses] in any way,” said Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, adding that he didn’t know if that’s necessarily how Paul would win.

While there’s no evidence of an organized effort, public polling shows that Paul’s lead is built in large part with the support of non-Republicans – and few party veterans think such voters would stick with the GOP in November.

“They’ll all go back and vote for Obama,” predicted Beach.

The most troubling eventuality that Iowa Republicans are bracing for is that Paul wins the caucuses only to lose the nomination and run as a third-party candidate in November — all but ensuring President Obama is re-elected.

“If we empower somebody who turns around and elects Obama, then that’s a major problem for the caucuses,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

Leading Republicans, looking to put the best possible frame on a Paul victory, are already testing out a message for what they’ll say if the 76-year-old Texas congressman is triumphant.

The short version: Ignore him.

“People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third,” said Gov. Terry Branstad. “If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states.”

The Paul rise comes at a moment when many Iowa GOP elites are already angst-ridden about their beloved quadrennial franchise. The fretting began four years ago when long-shot Mike Huckabee cruised to an easy caucus win, only to lose the nomination to John McCain, who finished fourth in Iowa after ignoring the state for much of 2007.

The concern has only grown in this election cycle. Romney has kept the state at arms-length for much of this year; Michele Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll only to quickly recede to single-digits in state and national polls, raising questions about the future relevance of what is a fundraising bonanza for the state party.

Further, the decline in the number of candidate events here — and the prominent role debates and cable TV have played in this year’s election — have sparked difficult questions about whether Iowa’s retail-heavy traditions are a thing of the past.

Paul officials note that they’ve embraced the Iowa way. And even establishment Republicans like Branstad concede that the congressman has done it “the old-fashioned way” and enjoys the best organization of any of the candidates.

“Dr. Paul is hands down the most authentic, principled candidate in the race, and we have run the best, most comprehensive campaign,” said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton. “Iowans will help further cement their national status by choosing Dr. Paul and proving that sincerity, seriousness, consistency and hard grassroots campaigning wins in Iowa, not glitzy, media-anointed, establishment front-runners.”

But many Iowa Republicans, convinced that Paul’s views are well out of the party mainstream, believe that rewarding such an effort in the short-term would risk the very process itself in elections to come.

“My biggest fear is that the Republican Party nationally and a lot of states that want to be number one [in the nominating process] will simply point to his winning and say, ‘Iowa’s irrelevant,” said Andy Cable, GOP co-chair in Hardin County.

Jeff Lamberti, a Des Moines attorney and former Iowa Senate President, emphasized what he said was the difference between the 2008 and 2012 dark horses.

“Everybody has the perception that there’s absolutely no way [Paul] can win the nomination, whereas a Mike Huckabee coming out of nowhere at the end to pull out a victory here – he was a serious contender,” said Lamberti. “That’s the distinction that has the potential to do real damage to Iowa.”

With his left-of-Obama foreign policy views, libertarian outlook on social issues and paper trail of controversial statements, a Paul victory could represent a potentially devastating blow to the tradition of Republicans starting their White House campaigns in Iowa.

“Mortal,” said Doug Gross, a leading Republican lawyer and Branstad adviser, when asked how severe the wound of a Paul win would be.

“I think a Paul win would be devastating for the state of Iowa and the caucus process,” added Sam Clovis, an influential talk radio host in Northwest Iowa who endorsed Rick Santorum Monday.

Clovis and other Republicans expressed hope that Paul’s debate performance last week would wake up traditional activists, who’ve seen his conservative TV ads and aren’t aware of how far the libertarian is from the party base on some core issues. Paul’s isolationist foreign policy views came to the fore at the Sioux City forum.

“What has me concerned is that on Main Street Iowa people are coming up to me and saying, ‘What do you think about Dr. Paul?’” said Cable. “These are folks who have to be informed. They have to get past the 30 and 60 second ads. If you ask Iowans if they’re for legalizing marijuana or legalizing heroin, they’d say no. But Dr. Paul has said on many occasions that that’s ok. But people don’t all know that.”

So far, Paul has been largely ignored by his Republican rivals. But as he increasingly appears to be a serious contender here two weeks out, that’s changing.

Rick Perry is now hitting his fellow Texan over earmarks and Bachmann and Newt Gingrich have begun targeting his foreign policy views. And their in-state surrogates have begun testing another line of attack — that Paul and his backers have “hijacked” the caucuses.

“To see the process hijacked would be a concern for those who consider the honor we have of being first in the nation,” said conservative activist Tamara Scott, a Bachmann state co-chair.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70674_Page2.html#ixzz1h69G3ESm

[Mr. Ambien]

I don't know what it is that scares the piss out of Republicans about Ron Paul but it's downright creepy how important things like the straw polls were until he won them, then how important Iowa is until he's leading in polls, now suddenly they're insignificant. Does the Republican establishment and media both think if they ignore Ron Paul he and his voters will go away?

[Zamboni_14]

I don't know what it is that scares the piss out of Republicans about Ron Paul but it's downright creepy how important things like the straw polls were until he won them, then how important Iowa is until he's leading in polls, now suddenly they're insignificant. Does the Republican establishment and media both think if they ignore Ron Paul he and his voters will go away?

[key2thecup]

Why Do GOP Bosses Fear Ron Paul?

DUBUQUE: Ron Paul represents the ideology that Republican insiders most fear: conservatism.

Not the corrupt, inside-the-beltway construct that goes by that name, but actual conservatism.

And if he wins the Iowa Republican Caucus vote on January 3—a real, though far from certain, prospect—the party bosses will have to do everything in their power to prevent Paul from reasserting the values of the “old-right” Republicans who once stood, steadily and without apology, in opposition to wars of whim and assaults on individual liberty.

Make no mistake, the party bosses are horrified at the notion that a genuine conservative might grab the Iowa headlines from the false prophets. Already, they are claiming a Paul win won’t mean anything. If Paul prevails, says Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, “People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third. If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states.”

The party’s amen corner in the media is doing its part. Republican-insider radio and television programs have begun to go after Paul, the veteran congressman from Texas who is either leading or near the top in recent polls of likely caucus goers. Rush Limbaugh ridicules Paul on his radio show, while Sean Hannity’s Fox show has become a nightly Paul-bashing fest, with guests like former Education Secretary Bill Bennett trashing the congressman with lines like: “his notion of foreign policy is impossible.”

Actually, Paul’s notion of foreign policy is in line with that of conservatives used to believe. The congressman is often referred to as a libertarian, and he has certainly toiled some in that ideological vineyard. But the truth is that his politics descend directly from those of former Ohio Senator Robert “Mr. Republican” Taft and former Nebraska Congressman Howard Buffett—old-right opponents of war and empire who served in the Congress in the 1940s and 1950s and who, in Taft’s case, mounted credible bids for the party’s presidential nomination in 1940, 1948 and finally in 1952. In all three campaigns, Taft opposed what he described as the “Eastern establishment” of the party—the Wall Streeters who, he pointedly noted, had little in common with Main Streeters.

Taft was a steady foe of American interventionism abroad, arguing very much as Paul does today that it threatens domestic liberty. Indeed, just as Paul joined US Senator Russ Feingold in opposing the Patriot Act, spying on Americans and threats to freedom of speech and assembly in the first days of what would become an open-ended “war on terror,” so Taft warned during the cold war that “criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.”

“The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country…more good than it will do the enemy,” explained Taft, who challenged President Truman’s attempts to use war powers as an excuse to seize domestic industries and otherwise expand what Dwight Eisenhower would eventually define as the military-industrial complex.

Buffett, the father of billionaire Warren, opposed military interventionism during the cold war era, declaring on the floor of the House: “Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are the methods taught by the Carpenter of Nazareth, and if we believe in Christianity we should try to advance our ideals by his methods. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics.”

When the threat of increased US involvement in Vietnam arose in the early 1960s, the elder Buffett wrote in William F. Buckley’s National Review: “When the American government conscripts a boy to go 10,000 miles to the jungles of Asia without a declaration of war by Congress (as required by the Constitution) what freedom is safe at home? Surely, profits of U.S. Steel or your private property are not more sacred than a young man’s right to life.”

Just as Ron Paul has consistently opposed free-trade deals and schemes to enrich government contractors, the elder Buffett railed against the crony capitalism of his day. “There are businesses that are being enriched by national defense spending and foreign handouts,” Buffett warned in 1948. “These firms, because of the money they can spend on propaganda, may be the most dangerous of all. If the Marshall Plan meant $100 million worth of profitable business for your firm, wouldn’t you Invest a few thousands or so to successfully propagandize for the Marshall Plan? And if you were a foreign government, getting billions, perhaps you could persuade your prospective suppliers here to lend a hand in putting that deal through Congress.”

Buffett campaigned in 1952 to nominate Taft as the Republican candidate for president. That effort was opposed by the Wall Street speculators and banksters of the day, and it failed—although not without a serious fight that went all the way to the GOP convention.

After his defeat, Taft griped, “Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank.”

That was the pure voice of old-right conservatism speaking.

It is echoed now by Ron Paul, who makes no secret of his high regard for Taft, Buffett and the old-right Republicans of the past, and of his disregard for the neocons and crony capitalists of today. Paul is running ads that propose to “drain the swamp,” a reference to the insider-driven politics of a Washington where Republicans such as Gingrich maintain the sort of pay-to-play politics that empties the federal treasury into the accounts of campaign donors and sleazy government contractors.

Paul’s ideological clarity scares the wits out of the Republican mandarins who peddle the fantasy that the interventionism, the assaults on civil liberties and the partnerships that they have forged with multinational corporations and foreign dictators represent anything akin to true conservatism.

The problem that Limbaugh, Hannity and other GOP establishment types have with Paul is that the Texan really is a conservative, rather than a neoconservative or a crony capitalist who would use the state to maintain monopolies at home and via corrupt international trade deals.

Paul’s pure conservatism puts him at odds with a party establishment that has sold out to Wall Street and multinational corporations. But it has mad an increasingly iconic Republican with a good many of the grassroots activists who will attend the caucuss.

The disconnect between the disdain the establishment expresses with regard to Paul and his appeal to the base is easily explained.

The GOP establishment chooses partisanship over principle. The base does not necessarily do so.

In other words, while the party establishment and its media echo chamber reject the Main Street conservatism of the Taft’s and Buffetts, there are many grassroots Republicans in Iowa towns like Independence and Liberty Center (where Paul campaign signs are very much in evidence) who find Paul’s old-right conservatism quite appealing.

That is what frightens Republican party leaders. The notion that the Grand Old Party might actually base its politics on values, as opposd to pay-to-play deal-making, unsettles the Republican leaders who back only contenders who have been pre-approved by the Wall Street speculators, banksters and corporate CEOs who pay the party’s tab—and kindly pick up some of the bills for the Democrats, as well.

What do the party insiders fear about genuine conservatism? Above all, they fear that a politics of principle might expose the fact that the Republican Party has for decades been at odds with the conservative values and ideals of Americans who do not want theirs to be a warrior nation that disregards civil liberties and domestic economics in order to promote Wall Street’s globalization agenda.

Ron Paul is not a progressive. He takes stands on abortion rights and a number of other issues that disqualify him from consideration by social moderates and liberals, and his stances on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and labor rights (like those of the author of the Taft-Hartley Act) are anathema to economic justice advocates. But Paul cannot be dismissed as just another robotic Republican. Indeed, he is more inclined to challenge Republican orthodoxy on a host of foreign and fiscal policy issues than Barack Obama. He does so as something that is rare indeed at the highest levels of American politics: a conservative.

And if he wins Iowa, he could begin a process of transforming the Republican Party into a conservative party.

That scares the Republican bosses who currently maintain the party concession on behalf of the Wall Streeters. But it, if the polls are to be believed, it quite intrigues the folks on Main Street who may be waking up to the fact that the “conservatism” of a Newt Gingrich or a Mitt Romney is a sham argument designed to make the rich richer and to make the rest of us pay for wars of whim and crony-capitalist corruption.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165290/why-do-gop-bosses-fear-ron-paul

[kyledude]

You can't institute tyranny with a libertarian like Ron Paul at the helm. You need a globalist puppet like Romney or Gingrich who flip-flop on every issue based on who their benefactor is.

[The Sedin's 6th Sense]

Ron Paul without a doubt.

[canuckbeliever]

I love the Ron Paul love on CDC

[hockeyfan87]

I'm on the Ron Paul bandwagon. I wish I was an American just so I could live to regret registering Republican and supporting him in his campaign. All this good will being showed to him is in vain though. The oligarchy of the USA is against him and will do anything in their power to stop him from becoming President, they would much rather have lame duck Obama for another four years lying and reducing the rights and freedoms of the American people as he has done thus far.

[Navyblue]

I love the love for the Ron Paul love

I just found out the other day that my great grandfather was an acquaintance of Ron's father.

Obviously no one would believe such a thing, but, alas, I'm sayin it.

[Donky]

Ron is a bit out there imho. Jon Huntsman would probably win the Presidency if the Republicans nominated him. However Huntsman is just not able to garner any support with Republicans.

[key2thecup]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLTb-JpWziM

[Navyblue]

nvm i was wrong

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