To my friends who intend to support the Republican party with Romney at the helm, I feel bad for you, truly I do. You have to know by now that if Governor Romney wins the nomination (which appears likely), President Obama is going to sweep the 2012 election. Don't get me wrong, I loathe President Obama as much as I loathed President Bush. I just wish I could understand why those of you who vote party-line are so blind to this reality.
It's a simple, two-fold problem. Firstly, the Republican party obviously has no clear favorite. This is probably because the three media-favored candidates are hardly distinguishable from the Democrats when it comes to most issues. Or on occasion, are so openly vile and off-topic that even many conservatives are dismissing their rhetoric. And secondly, the party has to contend with the reality that Ron Paul has an army of well-organized supporters. The latter of those is what I would like to address.
There's one thing that you need to know about the current primary process, and this is really important: the overwhelming majority of those voting for Ron Paul have NO INTEREST in supporting the Republican party outside of his nomination. I am certainly included in that subgroup. In fact, varying statistical analyses put the number around 1 in 4 right now. In other words, if it's Romney vs. Obama in November, then about 75% of those votes currently coming from Ron Paul Republicans will result in write-ins, independent 3rd party votes, or abstentions. They will NOT go to Romney. This is a huge problem for you. Not even the media knows quite how to spin it.
Let's be clear about this. Most Ron Paul supporters aren't so stubborn that they would never vote for another candidate. Rather, they're just not going to vote for a candidate who intends to wander down the same path of destructive policies that we've seen for almost 15 years. Unfortunately, most of you seem to be completely ignoring these much needed policy changes. Here's three off the top of my head.
- The majority of us couldn't care less about homosexuality and the myriad of subtopics you've created around it. The whole idea of small government is that the government doesn't get to run people's lives. We take this credo very seriously, whereas you only purport to take it seriously. If your personal beliefs encourage you to act in a selfish and bigoted manner, that's perfectly acceptable. But at least be objective enough to support legislation that embodies the diversity of our country, not the homogeneity of your personal faith.
- None of the other candidates have shown ANY interest whatsoever in addressing the severe financial mess this country is in. Occasionally one will offer some insignificant cut to a future budget proposal. This is meaningless to our current problems. Since some of you evidently don't fully grasp this concept, it means that if a department was intending to **expand** by say $100 billion in 2013, your candidate might be willing to cut that **expansion** down to $90 billion. Of course this completely ignores the fact that many departments need not exist in the first place and merely reducing their expansion does nothing to reverse our current level of debt. It's like going shopping because you received a coupon in the mail. You're still spending money you didn't need to spend in the first place!
We're interested in someone who wants to legitimately cut spending, who wants to substantially reform the tax system, and who doesn't support playing favorites with American corporations. And as a parallel to that, just because you don't like the Occupy Wall Street people, doesn't make them wrong. Stop acting like corporate lobbyists and financial bailouts are somehow to your benefit, they clearly are not.
- Stop trying to take over the world. It shouldn't be done, and more importantly, it can't be done. Nobody on our side of the table is suggesting war isn't sometimes necessary. However, the entire Muslim world is NOT your enemy, and certainly not our enemy. Even if they were, there are over 1.5 billion of them! The attack on Osama Bin Laden's compound was a small, covert, and successful mission. That single mission was more useful than years of occupation. We have ruined literally decades of progress and permanently scarred our nation's reputation, all on the quest to protect American corporate interests.
Ron Paul Republicans will not tolerate, much less support a candidate interested in waging these kinds of open militaristic conquests around the world. We have a Congress to make declarations of war so that the people can control the war. The President of the United States is not a military dictator contrary to what President Bush and President Obama may have led you to believe.
The recent Romney victory in Washington State pretty much showcased the general mentality of the party. Romney was hated by the Washington Caucus in 2008, placing last in almost every county. Now four years later he is miraculously the top pick by a substantial margin? It's pretty obvious that the majority of you are only interested in voting for the predicted nominee rather than who you believe is a good candidate. That's a pretty sad state for a democracy, especially considering it's only the primary process.
So having written all of that, and knowing how much I'd love to see a change in D.C. next year, I truly wish you'd wake up to the reality of this election. If you forcibly continue to exclude and ignore these people and ideas, you cannot win this election, period. Every one of the so-called swing states is going to be gift-wrapped and handed to the Democrats. If your only goal this November is to unseat Barack Obama, then it would seem that ignoring this population does your cause a grand disservice.
Please feel free to email me anytime with your questions on the topic; I'd be more than happy to respond. In the meantime, keep looking for that birth certificate, because that's sure to fix our problems.
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