This is pretty interesting, and reinforces my statement that Paul did not campaign hard in Iowa. Crunching the Numbers: Iowa Votes per Campaign Appearance http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/018233.html
I thought it was remarkable that Paul picked up 10% in the primary. He is so dramatically different than the other candidates in the Republican party on Iraq it is virtually revolutionary within the party. That he picked up the largest share of independant voters who voted within the Republican primary is indicative that his appeal is vastly different than that of the other Republican candidates. IMHO he should be running as an independant. Many of his views don't fit well within either party structure. On the other hand, it looks like double the amount of independants who voted in either caucas in Iowa voted Dem rather than Repub and Obama picked up the largest share of the indepen's in that primary far outpacing the # of independants that voted for Paul. .....and now moving forward to a new state........?
Yeah, initially my expectations were much higher, but after getting some perspective last night, I am fairly pleased with the result. It's not the ranking so much as only being 3% out of 3rd place. Well, the GOP used to be the party of Taft and Goldwater (Mr. Republican and Mr. conservative respectively). There was a time when the GOP was a much more sensible party. The problem is, he'd have to go Libertarian or Constitution Party, because the ballot access restrictions make running independent nothing more than a spoiler role at best. We basically have two parties. Big Welfare Liberals and Big War Conservatives. Unbelievable that the cradle of freedom would have such limited choices.
my impression was that Clinton turned or moved very much toward the middle. he definitely grew to be distrusted by his supporters from the far left whether by dropping them personnally or moving rightward. Both parties have dramatic pulls from the extreme wings. I thought Bush veered hard right....he moved to the middle on immigration...then his own party turned their backs on him. btw....I don't see anyone practising hard fiscal restraint. Paul has preached it in Congress...but his voice is so far to the extreme w/in the workings of Congress that his preachings haven't resonated. Then the disconnect between words and actions on earmarks seem disingenuous to me. btw...I'm reading "The Price of Loyalty" about Paul O'Neill now. per the book...he and Greenspan took a strong stab at fiscal responsability in 2000-2001 and just got blown away by the administration and Congress.
They may campaign to the wings, but they are all centrists at the end of the day. None of the Democrats are strong on an anti-war position, and none of the Republicans are strong on reforming the entitlement system. We basically get two flavors, but they are both cake, not American Pie. There are some decent young Republicans on spending, former House member, now SC Governor Mark Sanford, that Congressman from Arizona (whose name eludes me right now). But they all have a libertarian bent. They aren't trying to tidy up a mess, they want to sweep it right out ideally. I don't agree, but I can respect that. Paul has been incredibly rigid when holding to his beliefs. It works against him, as much as it is impressive in his consistency. Just a little bit of compromise may have accomplished more in the short term, but maybe not something that would last in the long term. You should read some of Greenspan's writings from before he became the FED Chairman. He was a gold fan and much closer to the Austrian School than the Keynesian one prior to getting involved with the FED.
What I am seeing when looking at the CNN breakdown is that the phone polls were spot on in Ron Paul's support of "likely Republican primary voters" @ 7% of registered Republicans. He got 29% of the independent voters which is great, but the independent voters only made up 13% of the total. The unexpectedly high turnout (~115K versus ~85K that I expected) appears to have been more from the Republican base than from the independents. The 10% result is still ~30% better than the ~7% that most of America (not reading RP supporters on DP) were expecting. He was also not that far off of 3rd or 4th. Ron Paul was also the only candidate other than Huckabee and Romney to win a Precinct. I've been seeing some MSM reporting that has actually been positive about RP's result. Unofficially I'm hearing that Ron Paul supporters may have gotten a disproportionately higher number of delegates from the caucus as many Huckabee supporters left after the straw poll and didn't stay for the delegate selection.
ROTLFMAO. So that means that even though we finished 5th in the straw poll, we might actually finish 3rd or higher when the delegates are selected to go to the RNC. Priceless.
The Council on Foreign Relations is a real organization. You can look up who their friends are on their site. Have a look at what Richard Haas, a foreign policy advisor for Huckabee and CFR president, thinks. It's not a conspiracy so much as a group of people (club, think tank, whatever label you want to use) trying to influence policy. They believe in globalism and they are not hiding it. added: watch this
Superb analysis of the Iowa Caucus (D) + (R). Covers Huckabee (favorably), Paul, Obama. Clinton a bit. Some McCain and Romney. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01042008/watch.html Enjoy.
I'm watching it, right off the bat praying for Huck to me looks more like people voting for 'faith' than actual positions on issues. I wonder how many who voted for Huck trully understand his platform, what he's done good and bad.
Blind faith makes people blind to REAL issues that are facing this country. Thats the problem with our political system, too much value put on faith and not enough on evidence. If we continue this path we might as well have faith that food and money will drop from the sky! Shameful.