Looks like Ron Paul’s presidential campaign is ending now that the GOP has spoken and wants 100-year-war McCain as its leader. To continue beyond this point would be ludicrous, and we all know Paul has run a sensible campaign until this point.
Jesse Benton, Paul campaign’s communication manager, said Friday that the Texas congressman is ending his run for the White House: “We are acknowledging that Ron will not be the nominee and that we are winding down the campaign.”
Paul already hinted the end was near in a video to supporters posted on YouTube on Thursday:
Oh, Paul. Though you will never be the U.S. president–unless it blew up and you were sole survivor and even then you’d have some competition with Michael Jackson’s former pet Ben–you will always be the president of our Internets. The obscure politician with fringe politics used the Web to raise a staggering $30 million dollars. At one point, Ron Paul’s YouTube videos accounted for five of the top 10 candidate videos, with the largest overall viewership of any candidate. So, farewell Mr. Internet. Hail, to the chief.
The fiery Republican with a libertarian streak, Ron Paul, survived a strong challenge to his day job in Congress on Tuesday, besting well-funded (and well-liked) Chris Peden.
Paul, ran for the White House as a libertarian in 1988 but gained more of a following this year as a Republican. Though he has been a long shot candidate throughout his presidential campaign this year, he did not drop-out of the race. He was forced to scale back his national operation to focus on the race for his Congressional seat in Texas when his constituents started getting fed-up with being neglected by rock star Ron Paulmania and the Maniacs.
Republican primary challenger Chris Peden said of Paul: “I do think the presidential race has exposed some of his values and principles that are not in line with his district, and that exposure has done him harm at home.”
But as Linkin Park would say, “In the end, it doesn’t even matter.” Because Paul power still powered through Peden and beat him in Tuesday night’s election. So there you go R3volutionists. You win!
Ron Paul maniacs should brace themselves. Today, could be the day Paul gets booted from Congress.
The 20-year congressman is facing a challenge from Chris Peden, the personable Republican mayor pro tem of Friendswood, who says Paul is out there “to make a point, not a difference.” Peden noted that out of 351 pieces of legislation Paul has sponsored, only six have made it out of committee and none has ever passed.
As Wonkette noted last week that “to many of his constituents in Texas Congressional District 14, Paul is just a blame-America-first attention whore who completely ignores the people who put him in office. There are no Democrats running in the 14th District primary today— so if Ron Paul loses, he will have the honor of being a double loser in the eyes of his beloved constituents.”
Yikes–perhaps Paul’s fear of the backlash his run for presidency wrought is the reason he avoided debating Peden. Here’s a video of Paul, flustered as he rants about why he won’t. His response? Peden should go “debate himself.”
Looks like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ditched his independent, bipartisan, clothing for some sexy elephant skin duds.
The New York Times reveals that several weeks ago, the mayor wrote a $500,000 check to help keep the dwindling and increasingly imperiled State Senate Republicans from losing their grip on power.
The Democrats are seeking to gain control of the Senate for the first time in 40 years, and the race is growing personal and bitter.
Bloomberg has made clear to the Republicans that he is willing to personally campaign for GOP senators.
That’s definitely not the rhetoric Bloomberg was touting while he flirted with the idea of running for president. Before he squashed rumors of his candidacy, billionaire Bloomberg promoted his independence, denouncing party politics and dramatically announcing his resignation from the Republican Party.
“The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy,” the mayor said at a the speech in June that set off presidential speculation. “We can accept this, or we can say, ‘Enough is enough!’ and together build a bright future for our country.”
Oh, so he said one thing then did another. I tell people all the time that peanuts are my favorite food. When they buy me a peanut-butter ice cream cake for my birthday I throw it in the trash. In front of them. (I hate peanuts.)
Alan Keyes — who served as Assistant Secretary of State for under Ronald Reagan and has been hiding out in Texas since February – ended his campaign with an election-eve “Rally for America’s Revival” March 3 at the University of North Texas.
Surely the “complete conservative” wowed the crowd with gems like this speech from his Lincoln-Reagan Dinner:
”If we want to win the victory [as a party], we’ve got to stop pretending to ourselves that we shall win it by scaring people to death with our Hillary masks, our Obama masks, and our bogeyman rhetoric. It has worked once or twice, but I can promise you, it will not work this time — any more than scaring them with Democrat control of Congress secured our victory in 2006. No, if we want their trust back, and their faith back, and their allegiance back, then we must trust the truths upon which this country was built….our allegiance to the authority of our God.”
First, I know I said a “crowd” of supporters would be at Keyes’ gala. But is five people considered a crowd if three of them are family members, one is a janitor and the other is a homeless guy lured in with the promise of whiskey and a half-eaten egg salad sandwich?
At any rate I’m sure it was swell. I hope he wore his “Obama mask” to the rally!
While Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama duke it out for primary election wins in Ohio and Texas, one congressman who dropped out of the Democratic presidential race will be fighting for his seat on Capitol Hill.
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) now faces a common problem: primary challenges built largely around the notion that his long-shot presidential bid and celebrity status have put him out of touch with voters back home. He will be wetting himself until the reckoning election on March 4, when Ohio holds its primary.
Kucinich admitted his House seat was in trouble when he abandoned his presidential bid in late January according to the Wall Street Journal. He told his hometown paper, “I want to continue to serve in Congress.” Read: This is the only way I can get back to The Hill, please don’t forget about me in the upcoming election.
So nervous is the Democratic House representative that Kucinich agreed to debate his four opponents– a rare concession for a safe incumbent. Check out his urgent appeal message here.
Long shot presidential candidate Ron Paul regularly pulls in large crowds of supporters, but it looks like they don’t rally for him at the polls. Case in point? Paul’s UT Campus rally last Saturday.
According to the Daily Texan, around 4,000 students and supporters stood in front of the UT Tower Saturday to hear him speak. But at the on-campus Early Vote location at the Flawn Academic Center–within eyesight of the enormous orange wave of coeds in “Hook ‘em, Horns” t-shirts–only 54 people voted for the Texas congressman that day.
Here’s a graph from Burnt Orange Report showing the disparity of voters to supporters:
So he only gets around 50 votes per 4,000 people. Yes, it is only 1.25 percent, but last time I checked 1 is more than none. I am sure that is the exact same logic the Paul maniacs follow… Looks like the number of YouTube hits you get is not directly proportional to the number of votes you will carry. Who knew?
…In reality they will likely post your home address and phone numbers on their blogs if you mess with their leader. A teacher and Live Journal user “Makkabee” made the mistake of writing a post on his personal blog about an inspired math lesson he used to help his students learn about line graphs. And poor Makkabee soon incurred the wrath of the Ron Paul Nation.
In the offending post, the teacher wrote about how he “talked about the [presidential] candidates rising or falling, and extending the lines on their graphs, I’d end with “and Ron Paul stayed flat” and add another segment to his straight line near the zero marker.”
Apparently the kids loved it, but Paul supporters did not. So they defended the outcast GOP candidate with all the might their love for him and the Internet can muster. According to a post Makkabee wrote the next day, his real name, phone number and address were on Ron Paul Forums all over cyberspace. Paul-heads are so good, they should be hired by the CIA to locate Al-Qaida cells.
Yikes. Let’s just hope they stick to virtual harassment. Although, Makkabee claims they “reported on his planned movements.” Hmmm. Did I ever mention that I was kidding whenever I talked smack about Paul on this blog? Please, don’t take my lunch money.
Read Makkabee’s egregiously offensive post after the jump.
According to an article by the Independent Institute, Ron Paul would have fit right in with the founding fathers.The writer draws parallels between Paul’s “policy prescriptions of more limited government at home and military restraint abroad” and the mindset of the drafters of the Constitution.
Apparently Paul’s foreign policy ideas “put him far closer to the spectrum of opinion at the founding than any other candidate in the 2008 race.”Here are some of the highlights from the article that showcase why George Washington would have wanted to buy Paul a Sam Adams back in the day:
“The Washington Post, in an op-ed dedicated entirely to undermining Paul’s candidacy, argued that Paul is an “isolationist” who would withdraw from Iraq immediately, wouldn’t defend South Korea if it were attacked by the North, and has attempted to understand why Osama bin Laden attacks the United States. Yet the nation’s founders were not isolationists, and neither is Paul. Like the founders, he wants to avoid unneeded and unconscionable military attacks on other countries that pervert the republic at home.”
Ever wonder why your favorite fringe presidential candidates are being ignored by your nightly news election coverage? According to the executive director of the World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement, Joseph Raglione, blame Big Oil corporations.
Raglione said, the only presidential candidates who refused to co-operate with Cap and Trade, are Mike Gravel and Ron Paul. They both believe in taxing the polluters directly. Mysteriously, both have been cut out of the corporate controlled media spotlight. Dun dun duunnnnnnnnn!
Senators Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are not listed as having accepted money from the Oil corporations, but if you follow the oil money at the Oil Change International website, you can see a fun little graphic detailing how all the other presidential candidates accepted money.
So that’s why Grandpa Gravel and Popular Paul are being ignored. The well-paid media is not reporting on these two presidential candidates because they won’t play ball with the oil tycoons. Ah, well, maybe a sense of decency and an intact moral compass is more valuable than being president of United States.
