The fact that the Ron Paul Revolution is still kicking, despite the fact that the Republican nominee has already been decided, could potentially help Barack Obama and hurt John McCain’s chances at the presidency. I read an interesting blog post from Tommy Christopher at the Political Machine that brought up a key point. According to Christopher, one of the strongest ties of the Ron Paul revolutionaries is that they strongly oppose the war in Iraq. Since McCain plans to keep the Iraq war going indefinitely, this will likely lead to many Ron Paul supporters crossing party lines to vote for the Democratic candidate, which will likely be Obama.
McCain’s party hasn’t worried too much about the Ron Paul fallout, probably assuming that it would taper off once he clearly won the nomination, but that doesn’t appear to be happening. In the recent Pennsylvania primary, Ron Paul won 16% of the vote, which in itself is not a huge number, but if a majority of these Ron Paul supporters turn to Obama come election time, they could easily swing the race.
Ron Paul seems intent on continuing to use his platform as a presidential candidate to spread his revolutionary ideas for as long as he can. The more people who hear Paul’s message, about the Iraq war in particular, the more people who could demand the end to this war, which would likely only come if Obama is elected president.
By staying in the race Ron Paul is in effect helping Obama. I don’t think that Ron Paul supporters are truly excited about the prospects of McCain or Obama, or they would be supporting one of these candidates by now. Which way they go in the end though could possibly decide the presidential race, and it is hard to ignore that the biggest issue in many of the Ron Paul Revolutionaries minds is the Iraq war. I can’t imagine many things more upsetting to Republican leaders than the idea of the Ron Paul Revolution helping Obama win the presidency, but it just might happen.
3 comments:
The only way true Ron Paul supporters will help Obama is by voting third party, thus taking votes away from McCain. But to suggest that Paul's supporters would vote for Obama is ludicrous. Obama is so unConstitutional in his thinking and so pro-big government that no Paulite could vote for him.
Yes Ron Paul die hards are going to simply write his name in come election time, or as you suggest vote third party, but I think a number of Ron Paul "supporters" will move to the Democratic side. The point is the only way the war in Iraq is going to end any time soon is if a Democrat gets elected, so if that is the issue most important to a voter then they will vote for the Democratic candidate.
Ron Paul supporters voting for Obama because of his stance on war? I think you fail to notice the vast array of issues involved in this campaign, and the depth of understanding the “average” Ron Paul supporter has on the issues. They have a better understanding of the problems and the (possible) solutions required to correct them. Most of them actually think about what would be the best solution to any given problem.
While Obama’s and Hillary’s supporter chant for change, most have very limited understanding of what changes should be made or how changes should be made. What ever their candidate says is accepted pretty much without question.
“Change you can believe in”, what a warm, fuzzy, say nothing phrase. But it does make his supporters feel important.
You underestimate the Ron Paul supporters, most are true to their convictions and belief. Only logical, straight forward thinking and honest opinions can sway them. They are not turncoats, I know, because I’m one of them.
I won’t waste my vote, I will write in the candidate with the ideas and some real solutions. That is Ron Paul.
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