Paul Suspends Presidential Campaign, Forms New Org

JoeKuboj writes "Texas Rep. Ron Paul announced Thursday he is suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination to focus his time on building an organization to help recruit and elect 'limited government Republicans.' Paul's decision to leave the race is an acknowledgment he had no chance of winning the GOP nomination. But even in loss, Paul is one of a handful of candidates who walked away from this presidential contest a winner. His presidential campaign had a broad base of support that included traditionally fiscal and socially conservative Republicans to young people who were angry about the U.S. decision to wage war against Iraq."

Comments

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that he still wants to remain a Republican. This is actually good news for his sympathizers.

Whoever wins the Presidential election in November, it's clear that the Republicans are in a the midst of a deep identity crisis. This is a tremendous opportunity to swing one of the major parties in a new direction.

As they say, there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. I think Dr. Paul is going to try to take the tide. It will be interesting to see where this leads.

Not a bad plan

[CaptainNerdCave]

he could have continued running for a position he had no real hope to win, or, he could step down and start trying to rally people behind a new set of goals.

whether or not anyone here agrees with his positions or thinks he is/n't right about anything, i think we can all agree that this represents a step towards what this country's political system needs most: diversity.

Re:Not a bad plan

[Original Replica]

We need a real third party in this country.

As long as we stick to the antiquated "one man, one vote" system we will only every have a two party system. Of course the party bigs know this and would never dream of letting the US transfer to to something like instant runoff voting or range voting. If we had instant runoff voting there would be no "spoilers" like Nader or Perot when a third party is forming. That is why Ron Paul is staying Republican, because he might change the party from within but he will never be able to start a successful third party. Our only hope of ever having a better voting system is to change it first at the State level through referendums, until a majority of States use it and develop viable third parties.

Re:Not a bad plan

[Ed Avis]

The most efficient forms of democratic government have lots of smaller parties in which none have enough power to filibuster each other. The english have a much more efficient government than we do, so do the Japanese.

These two sentences completely contradict each other. The United Kingdom has basically a two-party system, with government and opposition swapping places every decade or so. There is one small third party and the remaining parties are all regional/nationalist ones with only a handful of representatives.

As for Japan, it was ruled by the same single party from 1955 until 1993, and for much of the time since then.

If you want to see a system with lots of small parties, look at Italy. Germany is in between the two extremes, with four or five medium to large parties.

Re:No, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the submitter has some special definition of "socially conservative" (like how liberal is completely transformed when you call it classical) then yeah, the entire tiny government thing is 100% against the current "socially conservative" movement of having the government making sure you live your life the right way.

Paul realized this was the wrong year

[Anonymous Coward]

for a serious third party candidacy, since the two major party candidates both appeal to independents, which is a rarity.

Had the two parties nominated Romney and Clinton, we might have seen any number of serious challengers, including Paul, Bloomberg, and Hagel. At least one of them would've taken 5-7 pct of the vote in November. As it is, I don't expect Barr or Nader to take even half of 1 pct between them.

Re:Paul realized this was the wrong year

[drachenstern]

Three parties is just as bad as two. We need six or seven parties...

I guess just so long as there is no Party of Five on my presidential or congressional election stub...

Re:The 13th-15th.

[diamondmagic]

Mod up! No one seems to understand that if the constitution disagrees with something, you can not just write legislation and hope it is never challenged, you must amend the constitution if you don't like it.
There is this class of people who seem to think you can just pass any law you like, it is the supreme courts job exclusively to decide what is constitutional. This is immediately followed by everyone wondering why we suddenly have a huge executive branch and the PATRIOT act...

Re:The 13th-15th.

[Valdrax]

Okay, I'm an idiot for doing this, as now everyone'll say "He's a racist arsehole". I'm not racist, I have many black friends, I have many white friends, I don't give a holy f*k about race. I'm a facts man. Alright, let's pretend that's true. I doubt it, but let's pretend. How about some facts...

The facts are that the blacks were trading the folks that got brought over on boats as slaves long before Whitey from the South showed up with empty boats headed to the sugar/cotton farms. Fact 1: Slavery as practiced in Africa was very different from the kind of slavery practiced in the South. African slavery, like most world slavery throughout history, was a practice of taking war captives. Slavery was almost never for life, it did not extend to one's children, and a slave was not the chattel of another person. Read more here.

Observation: Two wrongs do not make a right. Even if Africans had practiced the kind of slavery that plantation owners did, that does not absolve the United States of any wrongdoing in its benefit from the trade, nor does it mean that there was no duty to put an end to rampant discrimination that followed the freeing of the slaves, from the "black laws" of the Reconstruction South that barred freed slaves from voting, owning property, being on juries, etc. to the "softer" Jim Crow laws and segregation of the 20th century.

The facts are that there were white slaves too, and black landowners/slaveowners/slavedrivers. Fact 2: White slavery was largely unknown by the time of the Revolutionary War. Even the indentured servant system recognized indentured servants as having significantly more rights than black slaves. Indentured servitude was not for life, and masters were expected to give their servants a starting package (by law) to help them found their own homes and families. Colonial Virginia, for example, required that white servants be given a rifle, some money, and some minimal provisions.

As for black slaveowners in America: Citation please. (i.e. I call B.S.) Even if true, two wrongs don't make a right, and only the most deluded or ignorant student of history would believe that there was anything resembling equality between whites & blacks in their status in society.

The facts are that anybody currently alive in the US who feels that [the history is still a good reason for active debate and hatred against a group of people who have no way to change their forefathers actions] should get up and leave the country.

Do you need help buying a plane ticket to move to Africa? (See, it's that last comment that's going to burn me, but I'm still asking, and I'm still serious. I advocate changing the system, not blaming the great...great grandkids.) First of all, why do you assume that I'm of African descent myself just because I (like most Americans) feel some disgust for the horrible and degrading institutions of slavery & segregation?

Frankly, I think the fact that you feel you have to state that you're "not a racist" shows that you damned well know that supporting the right of states to engage in discrimination is something that most sane and patriotic Americans react to with disgust.

What honestly motivated you to write this whole "go back to Africa" diatribe in response to someone stating that the problem with letting states do as they wish is the historical tendency of states to oppress unpopular groups like black people? Can it really be anything other than knee-jerk racist resentment?

Next time, if you're going to go off the reservation and rant about how racial equality is such a put-upon for the current generation, at least try to get some of your historical facts straight. Not that I think reality has a firm grip on you as is.

Not difficult to find differences at all

[weston]

I disagree completely. In most ways, the nominees from the Democratic and Republican parties are incredibly similar. In fact, it's quite difficult to find any substantial differences in the campaign promises of either Obama or McCain

It's not difficult at all to find substantial differences. At least one was all over the news today:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2008/06/fallout_from_the_gitmo_ruling.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/12/mccain-habeas-court/

We've recently discussed some substantial differences in tech policy and in advisor selection on slashdot.

I get it that to some extent, certain political realities force every mainstream candidate into certain positions. But it's wildly wrong to take the further step and equate all their positions, and furthermore, it's dangerous.

Re:Not difficult to find differences at all

[7Prime]

Exactly. This is why I find the, "all candidates are too similar" arguement to be so disturbing. For fuck's sake, I heard it back in 2000 against Bush and Gore. "Bush/Gore...what's the difference?" Holy shit, how naive are these people? If they can't tell the difference between a philistine semi-fascist war-monger, and an intellectual-minded left-leaning "let's listen to the experts" leader... then I don't know what else to tell ya.

Now isn't quite as extreme as the year 2000, which may have been the most extreme in the nation's history. But still the differences are very clear. The main difference, once again, is in the roll of privatization vs. government. THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE. It may not be "abortion" it might not be "should we go to war", but it's the kind of decision that leads a type of decision on substantial issues. For instance, War in Iraq would not have been an issue if not for the fundimental roll that private contracts/armies played.

Do you think that massive privatization is a good thing for the country? If yes, vote McCain, if No, vote Obama... that should be a pretty defining issue.

Secondly, how do you want your leader to communicate with other individuals/leaders? This is a big decision because it shows how likely the person is to be able to convince other people/leaders to follow through with their plans. Both McCain and Obama are fairly wise individuals, and project themselves fairly possitively. But McCain has the ability to intimidate (which isn't neccessarily a bad thing), where as Obama is more likely to adopt inspirational speak. As an idealist, I tend to like Obama's style better... but there is a time and place for the kind of communicative pattern that McCain has.

And we haven't even gotten to the issues yet. But the issues aren't really as important as the philosophy behind them. The bottom line is, most of the important decisions a president will make, we can't even guess at this point (Bush's legacy, no one could have expected in 2000, for instance). Who's going to best processes the incoming issues? Who's going to make decisions that fit with your particular world view.

The fact is, Obama and McCain are wildly different candidates. If you think they're similar, you're either not paying attention, or you probably are just saying that because you don't like either of them. If that's the case, then just say you don't like either of them. I think that they're of the highest caliber politicians we could ask for, personaly. As a liberal democrat, I of course strongly endorse Obama. But I couldn't ask for a better republican opponant.

Freedom

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why is this news on slashdot?

Many Slashdotters are strongly freedom-oriented. They tend to like free software and civil liberties, among other types of freedom. Ron Paul was the freedom-oriented candidate. How is this confusing?

Ron Paul was a fringe candidate ... only the most hard core Ron Paul fans would even know he still had a presidential campaign.

Wow, are you Big Media or do you just buy their story hook, line and sinker? The truth is he got between 3% and 24% in the various primaries and caucuses. That's a respectable showing for a candidate, and he did better than several candidates who Big Media deemed "worthy". Have a look at how the NYT covered him on my blog. This is a snapshot of race results when he came in second in Nevada. They refused to list Ron Paul because they were crusading against him and managing the perception you have. Funny, the Democrats' race added up to 100% but the Republicans had a big missing percentage of voters, where could they have gone?

Now, why would reporters now boldly in the tank for Obama have it in for Ron Paul and back a strong socialist for the Republican nomination? We'll leave this as an exercise to the reader.

Re:Things that make you go "hmm..."

[Fulminata]

Having grown up in the South, I heard this all my life. The problem is that when you look at the actual politics of the day, the only "state's right" that the North was trying to restrict was the right to determine whether or not the citizens of the state could own slaves. Other issues of taxation and economics all led back to the taxation and economics of that "peculiar institution" of slavery. This is something that most "real historians" that I've read have acknowledged. It's the amateurs that get to "state's rights" and stop there without digging into just what rights the secessionists were talking about.

Politicians in the South emphasized the "state's rights" angle for two reasons:
1) To help convince the non-slave holding majority that war was justified.
2) To try to convince foreign powers that the war was not about slavery.

Re:Things that make you go "hmm..."

[jeiler]

Being creationist does not mean being anti-science.

I have heard that statement so often that I am forced to the conclusion that people actually believe it. Such a statement, however, is nothing more than "newspeak." Creationism (and it's bastard offspring, "Intelligent design") is not only anti-science, it is blatantly anti-science. Those Creationists and IDers who actually know anything about science have one stratagem to propagate their ideas, as identified by William Benetta: "They lie. They lie continually, they lie prodigiously, and they lie because they must."

Please, regardless of whether you are aware of these lies, or if you repeat them in earnest good faith, do not waste my time by repeating them.

Being anti-"public"-school means getting government out of forcing one choice for free education and allowing school vouchers means accountability for the (still-taxpayer-funded) schools, improving our education system. I happen to advocate homeschooling and tax vouchers, so it is difficult to argue these two points. However, one must look to motives and results. Will this actually improve our education system, or will it further dilute scarce financial resources for education? Only time will tell--yet if we have not guessed correctly, the generation that deals with the "worse choice" will suffer.

Re:Who says that's conservatism?

[Devin Jeanpierre]

Those sound like economic ideals, not moral. "Social conservatism" has to do with how you live morally, generally-- whereas what you seem to be advocating is just "economic conservatism", or "right-wing economics", "libertarian economics", etc. . One can be economically conservative, socially liberal (Libertarian), economically and socially conservative (stereotypical republican, but...), etc. . Social-conservative economic-liberals are considered fascist pig-dogs by everybody, of course. Point is, from your description I wouldn't call you a social conservative, but an economic conservative and/or social liberal. What you consider 'social conservatism' (the belief that one should make their own way in life) is not at all the definition normally used in American politics. Either the definition where you are from is different, you aren't describing something correctly, or your definition is flat-out wrong for your culture and context.

Re:Happened once already

[Guppy06]

"Before reagan, pubs wanted us to stay out of other nations"

Unless they really wanted to build a new canal. Or just plain shoot at some Spaniards and their former subjects.

Re:"Social conservative" in the US

[Raenex]

That argument applies to everything we do. "The state knows best for you and society". Anybody who is for limited government should keep government out of marriage and any other "family values" issues.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

Re:"Social conservative" in the US

[Entropius]

Yes, but those cultural traditions weren't forced on anyone. That was the whole point of the "freedom of religion" bit: acknowledging that the cultural traditions of the majority shouldn't be imposed on minorities.

Now days, only if you are non-white are you allowed to keep your culture, except for your religion, you cannot keep that unless you change it to be more politically correct and secular. Yes, we know that religion is what makes the core of any culture, but you cannot keep it.

I'm white and have no problem keeping my culture. I can go to concert halls and see the music of my ancestors played; I can go to a restaurant and eat European food; I can go to any church I care to.

I agree that there's been an artificial glorification of minority culture in some respects (ever seen a Black History Month in an elementary school? It's disgusting), but this is no threat to "white" culture.

You certainly can keep your religion; you're just expected to not harass other people with it. If that's a problem, well, it's not my problem that your superstitions require you to heckle others with little nametags that say "Elder Bob".

And religion is NOT what makes the core of any culture. That's an absurd claim. Cultures with indigenous religions often manifest core cultural traits IN their religions (qv. ancient Greece), which is a different matter -- the culture came first, the religion was created to fit it.