RSSRon Paul … Still a Zero
J.J. Jackson | July 13, 2007
I reference this article because you really should read the hysterical responses by Ron Paul supporters to this report:
Giuliani has the support of 30% of “Republicans and Republican leaners,” vs. 28% a month ago; Thompson comes in with 20%, vs. 19% in June; McCain has 16%, vs. 18% a month earlier.Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney remains in fourth, at 9% vs. 7% in June.
The current numbers for the rest of the Republicans included in the survey: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, 6%; former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, 2%; Rep. Duncan Hunter, 2%; Rep. Tom Tancredo, 2%; Sen. Sam Brownback, 1%; Sen. Chuck Hagel, 1%; former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, 1%. Neither former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore nor Rep. Ron Paul registered any support.
Ron Paul supporters seem to have no shortage of explanations to justify why their candidate is so unable to even muster more than maybe 2% in any poll that isn’t on-line where they can descend upon it and vote relentlessly for their man.
While I like Ron Paul on a lot of issues, I’m in the same boat as many other conservative and libertarians. We just find him too unpalatable on how he would deal with fighting terrorism and to us that is a big enough issue to stay away. I know that irks Paul’s supporters, but it’s the cold, hard truth.
Contributor's website: http://www.libertyreborn.com
Content posted by users from other sites is posted for commentary and news purposes under fair use and each author is responsible for their own postings and a particular posting should not be construed as being endorsed by this site or its owner.
68 Responses to “Ron Paul … Still a Zero”
Leave a Reply
Loading ...Recommended Reading:
DUCK AND COVER! DUCK AND COVER! Incoming Ron Paul supporters at 4 o’clock
I will once again agree with you however this: “We just find him too unpalatable on how he would deal with fighting terrorism and to us that is a big enough issue to stay away,” is so true.
Yay, I’ll bite. So how do you fight “terrorism?” Can you bomb it? Can you overthrow its government? Can you starve it? Can you put sanctions on it? Can you herd it into concentration camps? Can you ship it to the moon?
How is it that we have the most advanced military on the planet and we cannot kill 1 single human individual (Bin Laden)? How is that?
How is it that we were told “Saddam’s got WMDs or is going to get them so we have to stop him since the UN won’t do anything” and then find nothing, but hang poor old Saddam (once our erstwhile ally, you’ll recall – equally despicable IMHO), and then when the country erupts into civil friggen war, we act surprised? And we’re told, we can’t LEAVE now, because .. well then Al Qaeda will take over!
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and related groups praise this action because they hated Saddam and it gives them lots and lots of juicy targets in their own friggen hemisphere. Forget trying to sneak across our … slightly porous (understatement of the century) southern border, they just walk outside and start bombing, level up, and then start planting themselves in target countries.
Whose idea was this? Is this a sane operation? Who’s driving this trainwreck? Don’t we have a right to demand some answers?
J.J.,
If Ron Paul’s such a non-threat, why do you keep posting about him?
Wow, talk about the red herrings no longer being an endangered species after that!
“So how do you fight “terrorism?””-bret
You kill the terrorists
“Can you bomb it?” – bret
Obviously you can because we bomb the terrorists every day.
“Can you overthrow its government?” – bret
When a government sanctions it and harbors terrorists yes.
“Can you starve it? Can you put sanctions on it?” – bret
ibid
“Can you herd it into concentration camps? Can you ship it to the moon?” – bret
Oh here we go with the “concentration camp” and NAZI references. As for the moon do we ship any of our problems to the moon?
“How is it that we have the most advanced military on the planet and we cannot kill 1 single human individual (Bin Laden)? How is that?” – bret
Technically our military didn’t kill Hitler either so what is your point? We can kill terrorists and have been doing so for several years.
“How is it that we were told “Saddam’s got WMDs or is going to get them so we have to stop him since the UN won’t do anything” and then find nothing, but hang poor old Saddam” – bret
Sympathy for Saddam? A man who violated every aspect of a ceasefire he agreed to? A man who tortured and terrorized his own people? A man who, by his own admission was seeking WMDs?
I love you Paulites … you stick to your talking points.
FYI, we did find several shells of of WMDs … about 500. And before you say that isn’t very many, realize that it only takes a couple shells of sarin to kill 100,000 people.
“and then when the country erupts into civil friggen war, we act surprised?” – bret
What civil war? Foreign terrorists fighting Iraqis doesn’t constitute a civil war. Nor does a handfull of radical Iraqi Muslims who decide they want to blow people up in the name of their religion.
“Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and related groups praise this action because they hated Saddam and it gives them lots and lots of juicy targets in their own friggen hemisphere.” – bret
Yeah and we saw what not going over there to fight them got us on Sept 11. Apparently you would prefer lots of nice juicy targets here.
“Forget trying to sneak across our … slightly porous (understatement of the century) southern border, they just walk outside and start bombing, level up, and then start planting themselves in target countries.” – bret
ibid
“Whose idea was this?” – bret
Congress
“Is this a sane operation?” – bret
Yes. Killing the enemy before they kill you is always “sane”.
“Who’s driving this trainwreck?” – bret
False premise.
“Don’t we have a right to demand some answers?” -bret
You get the answers – you just don’t like them.
“J.J.,
If Ron Paul’s such a non-threat, why do you keep posting about him?” – Buckwheat
Wow, you Ron Paul supporters are not short on just throwing out the red herrings!
Hey Buckwheat, this is a site that talks about events and news! hence the reason why Jeff posts and comments on the news! Got it?
How do you jump from Jeff posting a news article and commenting on it to Ron Paul being a threat? Did the little gerbil in your head jump the tracks?
bret and Buckwheat are just your typical radical libertarians who still can’t accept the fact that their candidate has no support. So instead of dealing with that fact they just keep up the talking points like you states Trigger.
They talk about civil war, how anyone that even posts anything about Ron Paul that is even slightly negative must see him as a “threat”, etc.
Like was mentioned in the other thread, they’ve learned their lessons from the libs on how to conduct a campaign it seems.
I get the vision of bret as the lonely kid on the play ground who just couldn’t get anyone to pay attention no matter how hard he tried and would say and do more and more outrageous things every day.
When Paul gets more than 5% in a non-spammed poll then you might have a right to believe that your candidate is important. Until then you are just that kid on the playground.
Well Libertarian Prince, I hope you’ve got some other arguments against Ron Paul besides his support not showing up on some “scientific” polls.
I suspect the conversation will turn in coming weeks and months. We’ll see.
bret said: “How is it that we have the most advanced military on the planet and we cannot kill 1 single human individual (Bin Laden)? How is that?”
Way to dis my brothers and sisters in arms and basically call them incompetent. Yet another reason I dislike the vast majority of Ron Paul supporters.
FYI, we had him quite a couple times in our sites … but Clinton let him go. So take your beef up with him. You have no idea how hard it can be to find someone that has gone dark in a remote region. Join the military and you’ll get some lessons in tracking and you see how hard it is.
Nobody has heard of Ron Paul outside of people who mess around on the internet a lot.
“Well Libertarian Prince, I hope you’ve got some other arguments against Ron Paul besides his support not showing up on some “scientific” polls.”
What? Boy are you rich. What do you have in your arguments FOR Ron Paul as a viable candidate? That he has 20,000 members on myspace where anyone can create an email and signup? Or maybe you have something more than the “unscientific” polls that Paulers have spammed?
“I suspect the conversation will turn in coming weeks and months. We’ll see.”
And when it doesn’t will you ever admit you were wrong? I doubt it. You’ll just blame it on a neo-con conspiracy or something.
LibertarianPrince said: “Boy are you rich. What do you have in your arguments FOR Ron Paul as a viable candidate? That he has 20,000 members on myspace where anyone can create an email and signup? Or maybe you have something more than the “unscientific” polls that Paulers have spammed?”
Oooooo …. ssssss … ouch! That’s a spanking there Buckwheat and a point you can’t refute.
Yes, what will you do when Paul gets 1% in the primaries? Demand a recount?
Title: “Ron Paul … Still a Zero”
Just about sums it up perfectly. Too bad too. The man has the right idea on a lot of things but is just too far out there on fighting terrorism.
There is no appeasing the Paulites. Jeff even says “I like Ron Paul on a lot of issues”, and I know its true because I read this site often, but that isn’t good enough for the rads of the right. They’re casting their fate with the loony left on the war and are going to suffer because of it.
At least they have learned not to try the poorly researched “non-intervenionism” was the founders foreign policy argument again
Ok, I’ll play along. Paul has 21,000+ members on meetup.com, which can’t be spammed. *This is more members than all other candidates in both parties combined*, and is growing by about 400 members *per day*.
These are actual people showing up at meetup groups all over the country, planning activities to spread Paul’s message of limited government, reining in our foreign policy, returning to sound money, and, most importantly, returning to our constitution as the basis for legislating and enforcing the laws of the land.
How’d I do?
http://www.meetup.com/topics/polact/cand/pres/
TM: “FYI, we did find several shells of of WMDs … about 500. And before you say that isn’t very many, realize that it only takes a couple shells of sarin to kill 100,000 people.”
You know, that’s a good point. It’s doesn’t take much. I rememeber jeff did the calculations once here (I think it was before the great database crash of 2004) where he showed that it only took one gallon ea of Sarin precursors to kill 80,000 people.
Maybe he should do it again.
“They’re casting their fate with the loony left on the war and are going to suffer because of it.”
Oohrahman, Republicans lost the House and Senate in 2006 largely on the war issue. They’re afraid those defeats will be magnified in 2008, which is why Republican senators have been moving away from Bush on the war — and towards Ron Paul and the “loony left” (Lugar, Domenici, Smith, Voinovich, Hagel).
Buttwheat claims that”Paul has 21,000+ members on meetup.com, which can’t be spammed. *This is more members than all other candidates in both parties combined*, and is growing by about 400 members *per day*.”
Again, this is pointless because there is absolutely no way to prove that all of those are REAL people. Whether or not he has more people than other candidates is pointless. That is like saying we have more people named “J.J. Jackson” that run this site than most other sites on the internet.
You keep citing all this “support” yet for all this “support” the polsters can’t seem to find more than one or two Paul supporters every time they take a random sample of people. And it isn’t just one company. It’s ALL of them.
How’d you do?
Apparently you flunked both logic and statistics andyou did pretty poorly.
J.J.,
Looking for common ground, your position on Paul is one I’ve heard from many principled conservatives like yourself: you like a lot of what he has to say, but the WoT/Iraq issues outweigh the other issues.
So let me ask: what is your (or anyone else here’s) opinion on the Paul/Giuliani dustup at the S.C. debate? Do you think there’s anything to Paul’s claim that our foreign policy causes blowback against us?
“Oohrahman, Republicans lost the House and Senate in 2006 largely on the war issue.”
Yeah, and if that is true then why are the Democrats still funding it?
You see that whole you are digging? Notice it is just getting deeper?
Uh oh, Buckwheat is hallucinating!
He’s now addressing someone that isn’t even here to respond!
As for your question, of course actions cause reactions. However the question is not that. The question is the action the right thing to do.
Oh my. Can I just say that that I am embarrassed by my fellow Ron Paul supporters right now?
I mean for goodness sakes fellas! Don’t attack the messenger! We’re not liberals!
The question is how many more times is Buckwheat going to post before he realizes he is losing ground faster than a retreating Republican Guard soldier?
Facts are facts. Some people just don’t like them. I personally don’t care how many people you can claim to have on a website. A couple people with a a few computers, some free time and fast fingers can register all sorts of “supporters”.
The facts are none of the pollsters can seem to find any of these supporters when they are polling. Now if some where showing him at 10% and others none then you might have an arguement. But they don’t and you don’t.
Krammer,
Ever notice how they jump around but always come back to the same tactic of throwing out another red herring as TM pointed out?
Well, I’ll be a little more rational
I like Ron Paul. I don’t agree with him on the war but am planning on voting for him. I know he has little support and I don’t pretend to believe otherwise or make excuses but I hope others will come around.
“Uh oh, Buckwheat is hallucinating!”
He’s got some really good pot! Hey share! Stop hording!
Libertarian Prince writes:
“Again, [Paul's meetup.com support] is pointless because there is absolutely no way to prove that all of those are REAL people. Whether or not he has more people than other candidates is pointless.
Well, it’s pretty easy to determine that the vast majority of them are real. You can go here:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/about/
…and click on a few Ron Paul Meetup groups at random. Click on their member lists and you’ll see that most people have a picture, a name, and have often left statements and other identify info. They sure don’t look like bots, I think you’ll agree.
Why is Paul’s meetup.com support “pointless”? These are growing tens of thousands of dedicated people who self-organize to spread their candidate’s message. Other campaigns have to pay people for this level of support and activity.
Sham-man,
Yes, I have noticed that.
Oohrahman writes:
“Yeah, and if that is true then why are the Democrats still funding [the Iraq War]?”
Democratic politicians are roughly as spineless as Republican ones. They have calculated that de-funding the war would not be as politically advantageous for them as allowing the issue to smolder, since it’s moving their direction anyway.
Buckwheat, who said “bots”? I didn’t neither did anyone else.
Again, pictures do NOT mean the person is real. There are hundreds of sites like facebook that have pics of hundreds of thousands of people on them. Point, click, download, reupload, post a comment. It’s not that hard to understand.
The problem is you cannot explain (except through conspiracy theories) how Ron Paul supposedly has this HUGE support base growing by leaps and bounds yet pollers can’t find them!
The answer is simple however and often the simplest answer is correct. The answer is Ron Paul is “Still a Zero” as the title says. The sooner to come to that realization is the sooner you get the help you desperately need.
Glad to see the “post by email” function is up and running again!
Anyway, I say I too like Paul … somewhat. But being former military I find his supporters too condesending and basically as just taking pot shots at the competency of the troops with talk like that of bret.
It’s what keeps me away from him. That and I believe in the war.
Now Buckwheat is whiping out the conspiracy theories to explain how the Dems aren’t ending the war despite it being so unpopular. The problem is that the “spineless” explanation doesn’t work because being “spineless” means one doesn’t generally buck what is “popular”. Yet they are doing it.
“Buckwheat, who said “bots”? I didn’t neither did anyone else.”
Forget it LP, the man is going to say whatever he wants in order to continue arguing. It doesn’t matter if it makes any sense or is even remotely true.
Buckwheat,
I generally have to agree with LibertarianPrince on his point over you. You talk about how the man we are supporting has so many people out there, yet he isn’t polling well in real polls. I’m sorry, and again even though I like Paul and am planning on voting for him, but logic dictates that something is amiss.
And I see no evidence that all the national poll firms are rigging the polls to keep Paul down so I must conclude that some people are trying very hard to make him seem more popular than he really is.
The larger response to J.J.’s original post is that the phone polls are the last place Paul’s support is going to show up, since they aren’t screened as people who are especially knowledgeable or active in politics.
Paul’s support first showed up on the internet, and now is beginning to show in straw polls. He placed second in a major Georgia straw poll, and won 1st place with 65% (!) of the vote in New Hampshire’s first Republican straw poll this week. The Iowa Straw Poll (Aug. 11th) will be another critical test of Paul’s support.
Overall, name recognition is the main thing lacking in Paul’s campaign thus far, and the reason he doesn’t do well in phone polls. But as we get closer to the Iowa Caucus (January, still 6 months away), you can expect that to change (he’s had more mainstream media coverage lately, for example).
The reason I’m heartened: the vast majority of voters still haven’t heard of Paul. But once they do, they tend to like what he has to say, and like it a lot.
However the fact still remains despite what some of the Paul supporters here claim, that no one can find a Paul supporter come poll time.
Oohrahman writes:
“Now Buckwheat is whipping out the conspiracy theories to explain how the Dems aren’t ending the war despite it being so unpopular.”
It’s hardly a conspiracy theory. Defunding the war suddenly would make the Dems look like cut-and-runners, whereas sitting back and watching it fail — and Republicans split along neocon/paleocon lines — is far more beneficial for the Democrats than taking any kind of decisive action to end the war quickly.
I’m not sure that this is a good thing to say: “The larger response to J.J.’s original post is that the phone polls are the last place Paul’s support is going to show up, since they aren’t screened as people who are especially knowledgeable or active in politics.”
So what you are saying is that those of us that are supporting Ron Paul are not “knowledgable” about politics? Gee, thanks a lot!
The implication of that statement is that those supporting Ron Paul don’t know what is going on and what does that say about Ron Paul? I am very offended.
And come election day when he still doesn’t get more than 1 or 2% what will Ron Paul supporters do?
Whupdedo on “straw polls”. Straw polls are often taken by members of a specific organization among its members. And Ron Paul is winning those where his supporters congregate. It’s like polling the members of the Club for Growth and finding that they support Pat Toomey or like polling the members of the Minutemen and finding they support Jim Gillcrist.
Paul’s achilles heal is his stance on the war and the way he would fight terrorism. And it will be born out come the primaries. People just don’t agree with him on that and they see supporting such ideas and not in the best interest of our men and women who sign up day after day to fight.
The American people don’t like to let our troops down.
Ms Peacock writes:
“And I see no evidence that all the national poll firms are rigging the polls to keep Paul down…”
I agree, I don’t think this is what’s happening. I think Paul’s support is in the process of spreading from the internet to straw polls and then to the general electorate. Right now we’re in between steps one and two, but I suspect we’ll be at step three in eight weeks or so.
But who knows? Maybe J.J. is right and Paul’s popularity will prove to be just a relative handful of passionate supporter/spammers.
Or maybe we’re about to see a political revolution in this country unlike anything anyone living has ever seen. Stay tuned.
Buckwheat responds: “It’s hardly a conspiracy theory. Defunding the war suddenly would make the Dems look like cut-and-runners”
Uh, what do you mean “looks”? And why should they be concerned if everyone is so against it and they are spineless as you claim? Again, if they were spineless they would take the easy road out and look like the heroes.
Ms Peacock writes:
“So what you are saying is that those of us that are supporting Ron Paul are not “knowledgable” about politics? Gee, thanks a lot!”
No, I was saying that people called for phone polls aren’t screened (or self-screened) as being especially involved in politics the way, say, straw poll participants are. The more people know about Ron Paul, the more they tend to like his message.
i scincely hope that this paul has a chance at win so that we will finally have you infidels off our sacred soils.
Ok, i see but Oohrahman makes a good point. “Again, if they were spineless they would take the easy road out and look like the heroes.” I agree. Your logic is tortured at best.
And I agree with Mr. Jackson that Ron Paul is not going to win any sizable support for two reasons.
One, too many people are wedded to the welfare state. I don’t want to speak for Mr. Jackson, but I believe he thinks this is bad too based on this site and what I have read.
Two, his policies (even to me) on terrorism are hard to swallow.
Ok, please tell me that that post by “Assad” was one of you just screwing around.
Libertarian Prince writes:
“And come election day when he still doesn’t get more than 1 or 2% what will Ron Paul supporters do?”
Can’t speak for all of them, but I’ll congratulate whoever won on their victory.
“Whupdedo on straw polls.”
Your points are well-taken on this, straw polls are not great barometers of a candidate’s support for the reasons you cite and others. But they do mean something, and Paul is doing better and better in them. I can tell you that the 400 members of Iowa’s 15 Ron Paul meetups groups are organizing very well to give him a strong showing on Aug. 11.
“Paul’s achilles heal is his stance on the war…”
Achilles’ heel for some perhaps, but not a majority. Did you see the recent poll where 54% of Iowa Republicans want all American troops out of Iraq within the next six months? That sure doesn’t sound like a losing issue from here.
http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/iowa_poll_052307.htm
I have to go — thanks to all for the debate. Go Ron Paul!
Pea,
In response to “One, too many people are wedded to the welfare state. I don’t want to speak for Mr. Jackson, but I believe he thinks this is bad too based on this site and what I have read.”
Jeff has stated many times that that which was built in 100 years cannot be dismantled overnight without destruction. I’ve heard him state things about how it will take a 100 years and lots of effort to undo all the harm.
Uh, Ron, you’re the one with backend access and can check the IPs. So you tell us.
Later Buckwheat.
And regardless of what you might think, most people here are not that far appart from Ron Paul supporters on many topics.
“Uh, Ron, you’re the one with backend access and can check the IPs. So you tell us.”
SO I am … I forgot!
Ron speaks truth: “And regardless of what you might think, most people here are not that far appart from Ron Paul supporters on many topics.”
Yep, pretty much just the war. But that’s a big issue because I have seen what happens when good men back out and do nothing.
Sham-man opines: “Yep, pretty much just the war. But that’s a big issue because I have seen what happens when good men back out and do nothing.”
Ditto those thoughts. I don’t ever want to see millions fleeing as a tyrany descends on them ever again.
“Ditto those thoughts. I don’t ever want to see millions fleeing as a tyrany descends on them ever again.”
Oohrah!
What’s this? I’ve been gone working on my weekly article and you’ve been having a party without me!
Polls show that more than sixty percent of the American public opposes the war. The President has an approval rating of twenty-three percent, lower than Nixon during Watergate. Nearly half the public thinks Bush should be impeached, and more than half thinks Cheney should be impeached.
A pro-war or pro-Bush ‘conservative’ candidate has ZERO chance of winning the presidential election.
We just find neocon candidates too unpalatable on how they would deal with fighting terrorism and to us that is a big enough issue to stay away. I know that irks neocon supporters, but it’s the cold, hard truth.
I personally think that supporters of Ron Paul turn off many people who would be inclinded to support him by the way they attack those who simply disagree with him over how to fight terrorists and the states that support them.
“A pro-war or pro-Bush ‘conservative’ candidate has ZERO chance of winning the presidential election.”
See, this is exactly what I mean. You are big on “polls” about what people think about the President although I haven’t seen any credible poll that shows support for him to be impeached at 50%. Yet you ignore that in those same polls several of the “pro-war” conservatives are running neck and neck with “anti-war” liberals.
Bobby Soc writes: “Yet you ignore that in those same polls several of the “pro-war” conservatives are running neck and neck with “anti-war” liberals.”
It’s that same selective reading of information mentality that we have talked about several times. They’ll take what they like and ignore the rest without any good reason for discarding it other than they don’t like it.
The “facts” still are that despite what they chose to believe, their candidate has not a snowball’s chance. And it is because of his stance on the war. Which is a shame because he is right on so much else. Reality will hit them soon enough.
The only question is will they realize it when it happens?
“Yet you ignore that in those same polls several of the “pro-war” conservatives are running neck and neck with “anti-war” liberals.”
You’ve just been pwned.
Anyone other than me think that all this activity by Paul supporters is just to try and discredit what Jackson talked about yesterday how mentioning Ron Paul doesn’t bring in the hits and he doesn’t talk about him for that reason?
Although I am sure 5 paul supporters won’t change things much.
You can couint me in the category of people that are supporting Paul even though he is wrong about terrorism, why it exists and how to fight it. But I’m making a statement about the social welfare society we are have built around us and that need to be taken appart.
Libertarians like Paul are anarcho-libertarians and a vast minority of libertarians. They believe in liberty … but just for them. They are not willing to believe that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their creator with certain unalianable rights”. They got theirs and to hell with everyone else that wants them. Their philosophy is fend for yourself, don’t ask us for help.
Dinesh D’Souza commented on this the other day and the Paul supporters went bonkers when confronted with the truth. The reverted to their talking points about “imposing freedom” and other such nonsense. You can’t impose freedom on people that have been asking for our help for decades and which we have turned out backs on over and over again even when we pinky swore promised that we would help them only not to show up at the party and let them be slaughtered.
They hate us? Yeah. They sure do! Because we have never been good to our word!
That’s dead on! Paul Libertarians claim that liberty is an unalienable right but they are very hesitent to follow through with those thoughts. Kind of like when our founding fathers said them and then allowed slavery to continue in order to preserve the union. It was wrong them and it is wrong now.
I’m always wary of anyone that draws support from Stormfront.
Well, in all fairness to Mr. Paul as far as I know he didn’t exactly ask members of Stormfront to talk him up. Yes, I know, he’s said some off color things about people of color which probably could have been better said but mostly he was just quoting crime statistics and the such.
Stormfront members talking up Paul isn’t in the same league as the Communist Party USA talking up Hillary and most other Democrats. In that case they are CLEARLY birds of a feather.
I don’t really know about Paul and the whole racial thing. Sure, he’s dismissed the most potentially damning quotes as having belonged simply to staffers writing on his behalf, but that still doesn’t say much about the company he may keep.
I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt thusfar … but like I have said I am not voting for him.