Ron Paul remains media poison

[Feuer Frei!]

I admit I do not fully understand Ron Paul and his beliefs. But I do understand when a guy gets shafted, and Ron Paul just got shafted.
On Saturday, the Ames Straw Poll was conducted in Iowa amid huge media interest and scrutiny. The results were enough to force one Republican candidate, Tim Pawlenty, out of the race, and catapult another, Michele Bachmann, into the “top tier.”


There are so many “top tier” stories in the media today that I can barely count them, let alone read them all, and Bachmann is in all of them by virtue of her victory at Ames. The rest of the tier is made up of two candidates who skipped Ames, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
As The Daily Beast put it: “The new top tier of Bachmann, Perry, and Romney — created by Bachmann’s Iowa straw poll win, Perry’s entry into the race and Romney’s lead so far in many national and state polls — has unleashed torrents of talk about the reshaped race.”
Paul’s name was not mentioned in this piece nor in many others. A Wall Street Journal editorial Monday magnanimously granted Paul’s showing in the straw poll a parenthetical dismissal: “(Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.)”


But “close” does not fully describe Paul’s second-place finish. Paul lost to Bachmann by nine-tenths of one percentage point, or 152 votes out of 16,892 cast.
If it had been an election, such a result would almost certainly have triggered a recount. It was not an election, however, and that is my point. Straw polls are supposed to tell us, like a straw tossed into the air, which way the wind is blowing.
And any fair assessment of Ames, therefore, would have said the winds of the Republican Party are blowing toward both Bachmann and Paul.
Nonsense, some would say. Straw polls are just organized bribery, with the campaigns buying the tickets and distributing them to supporters. (And, in fact, this is what I wrote before Ames.)
What they really show, many argue, is not where the philosophical heart of the party is, but the organizational abilities of the candidates.


Fine, I’ll buy that. But why didn’t Paul get the same credit for his organizational abilities as Bachmann did for hers?
I am far from a Libertarian. I believe big government is swell as long as it does big things to help the common good. But after Ames, it was as if Paul had been sentenced to the Phantom Zone.
Bachmann appeared on five Sunday shows following Ames. Paul appeared on none. POLITICO’s Kasie Hunt was one of the few reporters to do a separate story on Paul’s showing at the straw poll, but to most of the media he remained an exotic, unworthy of attention.
And I don’t disagree that some of his beliefs — legalizing heroin, the right of states to secede — are strikingly peculiar (though he has been elected to a congressional district in Texas 12 times). But if Bachmann’s victory at Ames was good enough to gain her enormous publicity and top-tier status, why was Paul’s virtual tie good enough only to relegate him to being ignored?


SOURCE

[Schöneboom]

Jon Stewart recently commented on this very issue:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/enter...on-paul/41311/

After watching this, I don't know how much more obvious it can be that the whole game is rigged, in both parties! Our presidents are not elected, they are selected! The media is complicit, telling the sheeple which candidates are worthy of attention. Is it any wonder that empty suits invariably rise to the top? No one proposing truly radical change is allowed to win.

[Bubblehead1980]

Paul is just too real for most people, he's not a jesus freak neocon and his message is far too intellectually taxing for most voters and commentators so like many people who are aware of their ignorance, instead of learning and being open to something new, they try to deride or ignore the message in order to feel better about themselves.I hope that given the dire times, his message will catch on so we can save the republic.

[Onkel Neal]

I like Paul for a lot of reasons, but just can't buy into his legal drugs approach.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I like Paul for a lot of reasons, but just can't buy into his legal drugs approach.

This is one point on which we completely disagree.

[Onkel Neal]

Oh, I'm sure a lot of people disagree with me on that That's fine by me.

[mookiemookie]

While I think some of his positions are loony as can be, I respect the man for his devotion to his principles. We need more politicians like Ron Paul.