Looking for Greater Clarity from Ron Paul

Daniel Wiseman 


Congressman Ron Paul of Texas is the lightning rod in the Republican presidential nomination sweepstakes. Those who support him are convinced he is “The One.” Anyone who does not see as they do are frankly, non-believers and Pharisees, so I have been told vociferously.

I have a Republican activist friend, a super-Patriot type, who has always been a huge fan of Dr. Paul; he has hammered on about Ron Paul’s stalwart conservative voting record in about 30 years in Congress. This New Year’s Day weekend, just days before Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, a lengthy opinion piece entitled “Why Ron Paul Matters,” by Cato Institute co-founder and president, Edward H. Crane, knocked Peggy Noonan off the top of the Wall Street Journal Saturday opinion page.

So, yes, this Tuesday, all hell will break loose when in the first official stop of the campaign season, Ron Paul will win a significant percentage of the votes in Iowa. Because of the media culture in which we live, it will be an earthquake. Forget for a moment the perception of some in the Republican Party that Ron Paul is outside the mainstream, or at worst a dangerous extremist, among non-political people, removed from the GOP internecine struggle, Ron Paul is frighteningly scary and might as well have three heads.

Here’s what I have said previously:

I agree with Ron Paul about 100 percent on domestic issues, concerning the size and scope of government. In fact the first and best way to start making the changes that America needs would be to start slashing whole federal departments such as the Commerce, Labor, Energy and Education, and privatize them. Paul’s libertarianism on social issues is not completely to my taste without going into it in depth.

Nevertheless, my main concern is that Ron Paul’s comments during the debates about foreign policy, the main occupation according to the Constitution for the president, show a profound lack of awareness. I stand by that comment, even though I would agree that United States can’t be the world’s policeman.

My column, which advocated for a Newt Gingrich primary victory, was readily condemned for failing to see the urgency of the moment. With a nation $15 trillion in debt and federal spending out of control, they told me we need a true conservative. While some disagreed with me in general, the Paul-backers shot back with both barrels and said it must be Paul, right now.

And maybe my critics are right; maybe it should be Paul or even Michele Bachmann. Maybe, now is the time to stand on principle and nominate a true conservative. Heck it worked in 2010. A good part of the GOP, and I tend to agree with the Tea Party wing, feels we can’t keep putting up moderates and then be surprised that we make little or no progress in changing the course of America’s fiscal decline. That’s a discussion in its own right and not the subject here. Sure, if that’s what you believe, I respect that, and generally agree with you.

Here’s my current perspective on Ron Paul:

Ron Paul has been a fairly ineffectual congressman in changing Washington in his tenure there. (Don’t tell me things would have been worse without him).

• Ron Paul has produced newsletters that are fairly racist, and demeaning, and even though he has disavowed writing the pieces, they circulated under his name. Does that make him a racist? I don’t throw that word around lightly and I’m not throwing it around here. There are far worse things said by the Democrats who are racialists, who look at the world only through the prism of race.
• Ron Paul wants to end foreign aid. Fine, foreign aid is fairly preposterous for a country that is broke. The lunacy is most embodied by the fact that the United States gives money to China, even though we are indebted to them through the sale of treasury bonds. But included in this topic are apparent comments by Paul that it would be better if Israel did not exist. Now I don’t know if these comments are true or not, but Paul will be peppered by the media on this topic should he progress successfully toward a November showdown with President Obama.

I should be absolutely clear that I don’t believe just because Ron Paul wants to end foreign aid to Israel that that makes him a Jew hater. Israel does not need the money; the multi-faceted alliance is more important in the long run.

Ron Paul right now is somewhat of an obscure figure. But his supporters see a certain messianic reality in him and who says they should not be entitled to feel that way? This is a long-standing American tradition really, perhaps starting with George Washington. The United States is a religious nation, and our passions reflect that. However, in modern times this messianic zeal has surrounded Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and now Obama, not a good track record. One of the anomalies of life is that we’re electing presidents, not saints. Perhaps the greatest political leader of the 20th Century was Winston Churchill, who was plagued in his personal life by many failings, but rose to the occasion in office.

Plainly, Ron Paul can’t be held responsible for who supports him. That’s not fair. If Ron Paul starts running the table in the primaries, we’ll see a lot better how he holds up as a candidate and potential presidential nominee and what makes him tick.

In conclusion, I don’t currently see anything particularly nefarious in Ron Paul. I realize while I’m trying to be open-minded concerning his candidacy, my comments probably will be deemed insufficiently laudatory by those in his camp. However, I think we have not seen everything just yet, whether good or bad. I believe the Ron Paul phenomena will continue to grow for some time, but that he will eventually need to clarify his past statements, real and unreal, and how they affect his current world view.