Why? Because it’s looking increasingly like Paul will exceed expectations in the Iowa Caucuses on January 3. In fact, he might even pull off an upset victory. Naturally, this development has the pundit class – which has been ignoring Paul throughout the campaign – scrambling to explain how Iowa no longer means anything and that Paul’s fluke win (assuming he does win) will be quickly corrected by cooler heads in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Oh .. and that there is no way in hell that Ron Paul could ever beat Barack Obama in a general election.
Our response to that?
Why not?
First of all, why couldn’t Ron Paul be the GOP nominee? After all, he’s the only one running who’s actually a “Republican.” And assuming he was able to scale that peak, why couldn’t he go one better and defeat Barack Obama?
Don’t get us wrong … we concur with the MSM that Paul probably won’t win the nomination, in large part thanks to his gleeful unwillingness to ditch his own totally unscripted, occasionally cringe-worthy version of the “Straight Talk Express.”
“A character from Grumpy Old men,” one GOP consultant recently told the Associated Press.
That’s correct. But as we noted in our endorsement of Paul, his curmudgeony contempt for Washington’s bipartisan refusal to deal with a bipartisan problem isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?” we wrote. “Ron Paul has never been about getting elected – he’s been about getting at the damn truth. And at 76 years of age, we can hardly blame the Texas obstetrician for letting it all hang out. In fact America needs him to let it all hang out.”
Also, Paul’s campaign is working overtime to dispel the notion that his occasional off-the-wall comments have rendered him unelectable.
This week, the campaign highlighted a new CNN/ ORC poll showing Paul edging Obama among voters 65 and older, as well as independents – two groups which will exert an over-sized influence in 2012.
According to the poll, “Paul does best among the following population segments: males; persons ages 18 to 34; persons under 50 years of age; persons earning less than $50,000 per year; persons who have attended college; crossover Democrats; self-identified liberals; self-described moderates; residents of the Northeast and Midwest geographic regions; and those residing in urban areas. Noteworthy as well is that Paul fares better than all of his GOP competitors against Obama among non-whites – garnering a solid 25 percent, or one in four non-white adults.”
Translation?
It’s not just a bunch of tin foil hat-wearing, black helicopter-peering anti-establishment kooks who are backing his candidacy.
“This poll further debunks the establishment-created myth about Ron Paul’s electability and shows an expanding base of support,” Paul’s campaign chairman Jesse Benton said of the new poll. “Americans of all stripes are tired of the status quo Washington insider games, and are looking for someone who represents real change. Congressman Paul is that candidate.”
We’ve never cared about “electability.” In fact, the GOP’s singular focus on obtaining and preserving power through the dispensation of taxpayer largesse is precisely what got the party knocked out of power in 2006 and 2008.
It’s also what cost the Democrats the U.S. House in 2010.
Also, the reason that the public has soured on Republicans since is that they have failed miserably to live up to their promises to cut government.
With the economy still limping along, record numbers of poor and low-income people struggling to scratch out a living, our public school system falling further behind the rest of the world and the walls closing in on America’s unprecedented debt – “electability” should be the very last of our concerns.