Did Ron Paul Have Any Real Impact?

Posted by The Anon Guy on June 1, 2008 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Jon Henke over at The Next Right is a brave soul. At the risk of being crucified online by the Ron Paul Army he takes a look at the interesting question of if the Texas congressman really had any lasting impact. His conclusion? No.

“Ron Paul was a protest vote,” writes Henke. “However, protest voters tend to be bee-sting voters: they vote once, but then fall away.”

Plus, there were significant candidate flaws, he says. “Ron Paul was always a far worse candidate than his supporters wanted him to be. In theory, he was a Republican who actively supported constitutionally limited government. In practice, he was also partly a crank (North American Union, Gold Standard) who talked about smaller government, but had no real ‘here to there’ plan for accomplishing it, and at least tacitly tolerated racism being put out under his name.”

As for the prodigious fundraising ability, the author notes, “I had heard very early on that Ron Paul wasn’t running for President to win, but to build his email list and bank account.”

However, Henke does think one area where Paul might of had an effect was on the local level. And, after seeing what happened at Nevada’s GOP convention and the PaulCongress candidacies of Carl Bunce (CD-3), Chris Dyer (CD-1) and James Smack (CD-2), he may be right.