See other Ron Paul Articles
Title: ANOTHER WALL STREET JOURNAL HIT PIECE - What Ron Paul Wants
Source:
Wall Street Journal
URL Source: http://online.wsj.com/article
Published: Jan 20, 2012
Author: KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Post Date: 2012-01-20 17:52:24 by TwentyTwelve
Keywords: Hit Piece, Wall Street Journal, Zionist Propaganda, Jewish Propaganda
Views: 285
Comments: 19
*Wall Street Journal * POTOMAC WATCH * JANUARY 20, 2012, 7:07 A.M. ET What Ron Paul Wants He knows he can't win, but he wants to use his delegates to hold the Republican Party hostage to his views on national security and presidential power. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Columbia, S.C. Ron Paul didn't win Iowa. He didn't win New Hampshire. He won't win here on Saturday, and he won't win Florida. The Texas congressman will not likely be the first choice for Republican nominee in a single U.S. state. For most politicians, the act of losing—again and again—is a sign that the majority of voters prefer something else. Yet Mr. Paul isn't going anywhere. He's suggested he'll be in this primary until the last votes in June. Which raises the question: What does Mr. Paul want? The answer is coming clear, and it ought to have the Republican voters who are hosting Mr. Paul in this primary unhappy. The speculation up to now has been that the Texan might launch a third-party run, but it seems he's keeping that in his back pocket. His real aim is to take the party hostage, threatening to withhold his followers' votes unless the GOP agrees to adopt positions that are anathema to most conservatives. Call it minority rule. The Paul team keeps insisting they are in this to win. But if that were the case, Mr. Paul would have spent more than a few days in this state, and he would then be concentrating on Florida. His team is instead throwing its money and efforts at states like Nevada, Maine, Colorado and Minnesota, which are less expensive markets and where caucus systems are more open to Mr. Paul's grass-roots troops. The spin is that these smaller states could allow Mr. Paul to steadily assemble the 1,144 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination—even if he never wins a race. This is ludicrous. With most Republican primary and caucus states now awarding delegates on a proportional basis, and with Mr. Paul polling low in most delegate-rich states, he cannot hit that number. The bullishness is designed to keep up turnout among Mr. Paul's supporters and provide polite cover for the team's real objective: running up delegate numbers. The goal is to collect enough delegates to make a statement at the Republican convention, where Mr. Paul will let it be known that the price of his support will be the adoption of his positions. "The more delegates I have, the more leverage I have," said Mr. Paul, bluntly, this week. "We'll go after delegates, and we have staying power." Mr. Paul isn't losing this nomination because of his libertarian economic views, including his calls to slash spending. His criticism of big domestic government is what has earned him admiration from many Republicans. The GOP has long been the party of limited government, and were Mr. Paul to use his influence to push a nominee to focus more on that goal, many voters might appreciate the gesture. Mr. Paul is losing this nomination because of his isolationist views on foreign policy and presidential power. As the voter boos at debates attest, his positions are decidedly not those of a Republican Party that has long believed in a robust projection of U.S. power. And yet Paul advisers are now admitting this is the platform Mr. Paul is intent on foisting. The congressman wants to use his delegate power to pressure the party to reverse its support for, say, key sections of the Patriot Act (like roving wiretaps) since they offend Mr. Paul's sensibilities. He also wants the GOP to end a president's ability to take action against enemies without explicit congressional approval. And he's in no mood to negotiate. "I don't how they're going to handle it," said Mr. Paul. "Because we're very precise on what we would like. . . . We want to change things." Republicans should not be expected to handle it well. There is a certain hubris to the Paul campaign, the belief that because Mr. Paul makes appeals to the Constitution, his views are pure and right—and anyone who disagrees is a member of the "establishment." It seems not to matter to Mr. Paul that the complex issues on which he pronounces have in fact long been the subject of vigorous debate, and that the GOP has come by its positions honestly. It seems also not to matter that exit polls show that much of Mr. Paul's support comes from outside the Republican party, from left-leaning independents or even Democrats. Mr. Paul will see his particular views adopted by the GOP, or he will rebel. Perhaps the better question is not what Mr. Paul wants, but what he hopes to accomplish. In the unlikely event he is able to scare the ultimate nominee into adopting his demands, the subsequent revolt from conservative voters will only hurt the party. If, as is more likely, the GOP nominee refuses to renounce the Patriot Act or presidential power, and Mr. Paul defects for an independent run, that too would hurt the party. Either way, the end result is a re-election boost to Barack Obama, whose views are as far away from Mr. Paul's as any candidate now on the stage. And it's hard to imagine how Mr. Paul could want that. Write to kim@wsj.com Poster Comment: KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL has written several Ron Paul hit pieces in the past few months
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Here is another WJS article written by KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL: * The Wall Street Journal * POTOMAC WATCH * DECEMBER 16, 2011 Why Ron Paul Can't Win The candidate's problem isn't better-funded opponent or media bias—it's his own views on foreign policy. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Ron Paul is, in many ways, the ideal candidate for a conservative electorate hungry for a principled GOP nominee. Ron Paul will never be the GOP nominee. For this, Mr. Paul has himself to blame. In his third run for president, and only a few weeks out from the 2012 Iowa caucuses, the Texas congressman has become the sleeper news of this nomination fight. Polls show him with real strength in Iowa, and stories are brimming with speculation about how the ardent libertarian might pull off a victory there, or how he might command crucial support in Western states, or how all this might upend the Romney-Gingrich narrative. It's fun as far as it goes, but it misses the world. Or, rather, it misses Mr. Paul's unpopular foreign-policy views, which make him the ultimate self-limiting candidate. And what makes those views more notable is the candidate's stubborn refusal to modulate them—an obstinacy at odds with the rest of his 2012 campaign. Mr. Paul was largely written off in the past as an ideological crank, a man who ran primarily to have his views heard, and many political watchers have made the same mistake this time. But if there has been an overlooked theme in this race, it has been Mr. Paul's new seriousness about winning the nomination. The Ron Paul of 2012 is a different candidate from the Ron Paul of the past. Aware that his absolutist positions worry voters, the libertarian has been conducting a far more mainstream campaign. Not that he's flipped on any major positions. The Paul campaign knows that its greatest opportunity is attracting voters who are dissatisfied with the other front-runners' policy timidity or lack of consistency. Mr. Paul is neither timid nor inconsistent, and it ought to make him a star. Nicknamed the "intellectual godfather" of the tea party movement, he's held the same views about limited government since before his first election in 1976. Those views are behind his platform today to slash $1 trillion from the federal government, to eliminate five federal cabinet agencies, to cut the corporate tax rate and get rid of taxes on capital gains and dividends, and to repeal everything from ObamaCare to Sarbanes-Oxley. The difference in the 2012 Paul campaign is instead one of a maturing tone and emphasis. Consider: The Ron Paul who in 1988 ran for president as a Libertarian spoke pugnaciously of abolishing "unconstitutional" entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. The Ron Paul of 2008 acknowledged these entitlements could not go away overnight and argued for an opt-out. The Ron Paul of today still holds those positions but is now at great pains to stress that his budget plan is in fact the only one that would "save" entitlements like Social Security and Medicare for current retirees. He's toned down his calls to legalize drugs. He wrote an October USA Today op-ed reassuring parents they'd retain (in the near term) student loans. Whereas Mr. Paul still despises income taxes and wants to kill off the IRS, he now concedes this might require reform of the existing system, and he promises to extend the Bush tax cuts. Organizationally, the 2012 Paul campaign has also sloughed off its 2008 disdain of the establishment, and in Iowa at least Mr. Paul is engaging in retail politics, sitting down with party elders and activists. These are the efforts of a candidate newly willing to work within a certain framework, if it means a shot at the White House. Except on foreign policy, where Mr. Paul does himself in. In discrete areas, Mr. Paul's "noninterventionist" approach resonates with those weary of war, or with the populist sentiment that we spend too much on foreign aid. And note that Mr. Paul has made small stabs at reassuring voters of his patriotism, as with a big national TV ad that highlighted his own military service and commitment to veterans. But none of this has addressed voters' big concern over a Paul philosophy that fundamentally denies American exceptionalism and refuses to allow for decisive action to protect the U.S. homeland. Perhaps nothing hurt the candidate more in 2008 than his declaration that one reason terrorists attacked us on 9/11 is because "we've been in the Middle East." Far from toning down such views, Mr. Paul has amped up the wattage, claiming this year that 9/11 prompted "glee" in a Bush administration looking for a pretext to "invade Iraq." He's condemned the Obama administration's killings of terrorists Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and he insists the U.S. is "provoking" Iran. For foreign-policy hawks, this is a disqualifier. It explains why a Washington Post-ABC poll in late September showed that Mr. Paul drew some of his weakest numbers from his own base. Of the 25% of voters who viewed him favorably, nearly two-thirds did not identify themselves as Republicans. Among self-identified "conservative Republicans," only 8% gave him a "strongly favorable" rating. You don't win a GOP nomination with figures like this. Even mainstream Democrats and independents have no time for Mr. Paul's brand of isolationism, which is why his national numbers remain stuck around 10%. Mr. Paul's new strategy has been to assail opponents like Mr. Gingrich, hoping to remind voters of his rivals' flaws. But the bar to Mr. Paul's campaign is not his opponents, or their money, or (a frequent Paul complaint) media bias. Because he can't, or won't, accommodate his own foreign policy views to those of the nation, there is only one bar to a Ron Paul victory: Mr. Paul. Write to kim@wsj.com http://online.wsj.com/article
Congratulations to WSJ on Shanghai'ing ABC Family Channel's entire writing staff. "I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S Burroughs
Gingrich is just a victim of those Mean Girls who hate America and stuff.
"I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S Burroughs
Congratulations to WSJ on Shanghai'ing ABC Family Channel's entire writing staff. Kimberly is a nutcase and likes to make up stuff as she writes: For foreign-policy hawks, this is a disqualifier. It explains why a Washington Post-ABC poll in late September showed that Mr. Paul drew some of his weakest numbers from his own base. Of the 25% of voters who viewed him favorably, nearly two-thirds did not identify themselves as Republicans. Among self-identified "conservative Republicans," only 8% gave him a "strongly favorable" rating. You don't win a GOP nomination with figures like this. Even mainstream Democrats and independents have no time for Mr. Paul's brand of isolationism, which is why his national numbers remain stuck around 10%.
That one fragment of a longer sentence proves she is full of $#it. The GOP has long been a party to the destruction of America with their votes enabling the shredding of the Constitution and the outrageous spending for wars that benefit no one but the MIC and the bankers. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken "..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..." Lawrence M. Vance Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)
For foreign-policy hawks, this is a disqualifier. For foreign-policy CHICKEN hawks, this is a disqualifier. There. Fixed it. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken "..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..." Lawrence M. Vance Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)
Ma and Pa Kettle's Government Math School for Neocon Poll-Rigging: Neocon Rehab: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
" If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11 "Life's tough, and even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne
Good keywords Ron Paul agrees with Intel's blowback analysis. Ron Paul has 70% support on his foreign policy from active Military campaign donations. Netanyahu gave a speech to Congress in-line with Ron Paul's foreign policy. Neocons are the War for Empire Party, not the GOP "establishment". ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Hi GL, Net did this when or where? I thought Net and RP would not be exactly friends. Fox News panel unanimously agree: GOP can't win 2012 w/o Ron Paul's support Uploaded by evmazu on Jan 16, 2012 Q: "Does the GOP really think they can win without the support of Ron Paul?" A1: "No, they can't." ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
My wife really loved that youtube, abraxas. She says, "Go Ron!!"
I'm happy she enjoyed that one. I thought that one was great too......even though Bill Mahar's mug was showing on the upload, he only had a small segment. : )
" If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11 "Life's tough, and even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne
It's in that vid I posted upstream. Nutty Yahoo was speaking to Con gress. " If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11 "Life's tough, and even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne
Hi, tom. Here's a Transcript of Netanyahu's Speech to Congress - May 24, 2011. Excerpt: Here's a clip of his speech at this 4um thread: My title: Comparing Ron Paul with George Washington, Netanyahu, and Israel's Mossad See also, the posted articles: Mossad chief: Nuclear Iran not Necessarily Existential Threat to Israel “I love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy.” ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Thanks GL.
WSJ like all MSM outlets is owned and controlled by members of the CFR, as the CFR does not and can not get their thumb on the good doctor all they have left is character assassination. the pratt house is having their diebold boys pull out all the stops to try to negate Ron Paul's true standings in the primaries.
Sounds like she/they are in a real panic mode over Ron Paul to come out with something this blatant.
#2. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
For most politicians, the act of losing—again and again—is a sign that the majority of voters prefer something else.
#3. To: TwentyTwelve (#1)
#4. To: Dakmar (#2)
For most politicians, the act of losing—again and again—is a sign that the majority of voters prefer something else.
#5. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
The GOP has long been the party of limited government
#6. To: TwentyTwelve (#1)
Far from toning down such views, Mr. Paul has amped up the wattage, claiming this year that 9/11 prompted "glee" in a Bush administration looking for a pretext to "invade Iraq." He's condemned the Obama administration's killings of terrorists Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and he insists the U.S. is "provoking" Iran.
#7. To: TwentyTwelve, All (#1)
Of the 25% of voters who viewed him favorably, nearly two-thirds did not identify themselves as Republicans. Among self-identified "conservative Republicans," only 8% gave him a "strongly favorable" rating. You don't win a GOP nomination with figures like this. Even mainstream Democrats and independents have no time for Mr. Paul's brand of isolationism, which is why his national numbers remain stuck around 10%.
#8. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
#9. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
Hit Piece, Wall Street Journal, Zionist Propaganda, Jewish Propaganda
"Satan / Cheney in "08" 
#10. To: TwentyTwelve, All (#1)
foreign policy
#11. To: GreyLmist (#10)
Netanyahu gave a speech to Congress in-line with Ron Paul's foreign policy.
"Satan / Cheney in "08"
#12. To: TwentyTwelve, All (#0)
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL has written several Ron Paul hit pieces in the past few months
A2: "They can't"
A3: "They can't"
#13. To: abraxas (#8)
#14. To: randge (#13)
#15. To: tom007 (#11)
Net did this when or where?
#16. To: tom007 (#11)
Hi GL, Net did this when or where? I thought Net and RP would not be exactly friends.
My friends, you don’t need to do nation building in Israel. We’re already built. You don’t need to export democracy to Israel. We’ve already got it. You don’t need to send American troops to defend Israel. We defend ourselves.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Agrees With Ron Paul on National Sovereignty
During the 2008 presidential campaign, I bought into the conventional wisdom on Ron Paul. He was pretty good on domestic policy, but a “nut-job” when it comes to foreign policy. But as I’ve really listened to what he says, as opposed to the media spin, and studied the world I live in today, I find he makes much more sense. Do I agree with him 100 percent? No. But I can no longer simply discount his foreign policy as quackery. I hear this mantra all the time today. “I like that Ron Paul feller, except for his foreign policy.” I’m not even sure many who say that really understand his foreign policy positions. In fact, they line up pretty closely with stated positions of another president revered by most Americans – George Washington. I wonder if Washington could get any traction in American politics today with this kind of foreign policy thinking? The following comes from his Farewell Address, delivered on Sept. 17, 1796. [Cont. at site]
#17. To: GreyLmist (#16)
"Satan / Cheney in "08"
#18. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
the most factual thing ever posted by buckeroo
I have no freaking' clue. buckeroo posted on 2010-07-24 21:33:00 ET
#19. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
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