Writes Amy Peikoff over on Why I Won’t Vote For Ron Paul:
Today the top story on Ron Paul’s web site says that, according to a recent poll, Ron Paul would, if elections were held today, have a realistic chance of beating Barack Obama. […]
The reason that he has so much appeal as a candidate for 2012 is, of course, because of the Tea Party. In fact, I believe someone during the first GOP/conservative/whatever debate that was conducted in South Carolina last week actually called him the “godfather” of the Tea Party. Ron Paul’s been around for years and there was no Tea Party until recently, so just using Mill’s Methods you can see that isn’t true. It was Rick Santelli who started the Tea Party movement and he credits Ayn Rand for inspiring him. “I’m an Ayn Rander,” he said. (He mentions Ayn Rand in this video, for example.)
Nonetheless, Ron Paul seems to be the candidate who has the longest track record with respect to supporting the drastic spending cuts and radical reforms in monetary policies that Tea Party members would like to see. For instance he has supported “open competition” in currency and the gold standard for years. He advocates abolishing the Income Tax and the IRS, and would instead finance the federal government via excise taxes and non-protectionist tariffs (which would be possible to do only because he also advocates massive cuts in spending). He has criticized race-based quotas and, while he at first seemed to be duped (like virtually everyone else) about the dangers of global warming, he has since described it as a “hoax.” Music to our ears, right?
In fact, if all one considered were the statements he made during the recent South Carolina debate, Paul sounded like the best candidate on the stage, on nearly every issue he discussed. But some important issues weren’t discussed, and…