Quote from CNN

I just heard the following quote (probably lightly paraphrased) from CNN:

"Studies have shown that some people don't look up the sources of their information ..."

"Studies" have shown that, eh?

Ron Paul Meetup Group at Sweetcorn Festival

Here in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, we have an annual Sweetcorn Festival. Every town in America has a local festival celebrating something peculiar to the town. Here we have lots of corn on the cob and local vendors and organizations advertising their organization in spiffy 10ft x 10ft booths.

And a Ron Paul booth sponsored by the local Meetup group.


No other candidate for President, apparently, has support enthusiastic enough to sponsor a booth for their candidate. A state representative, the young GOPs, the senior GOPs, the Democratic Party, and the Green Party each had a booth, though.

There was a wide range of reactions to our presence. Most people read Ron Paul's name, possibly for the first time, and moved on. That's fine with me. We're certainly in the name recognition stage.

Many people approached us saying that Ron Paul already has their vote and taking a bumper sticker to advertise the name. Many people picked up information from us because their friend was really into Ron Paul. Some people were instantly intrigued when we introduced him as an "antiwar Republican running for President."

Other people were instantly turned off when hi was introduced in the same way or approached us to tell us that they couldn't vote for him because he opposed the war. That's fine, too. I remember Ron Paul saying in a speech that if they're happy with the way things are going, then he's not the candidate for them.

A couple of other people approached us confused about something Ron Paul had said (or not said). We were able to clarify it, and they were able to walk away with perfectly positive thoughts toward Ron Paul.

In total, I'd say it was a very productive two days for the work of about eight people. We have a long way to go to reaching out to everyone, and about five months to cover the distance.

Ron Paul Video From the Illinois Straw Poll

Watch the video of Ron Paul supporters here and read about the guy at the end of the video here.

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08/26/2007 Edited to retract. The guy at the end of the video and the guy in the article are not the same person.

Ron Paul Earns Near Second in Illinois Straw Poll

I was at the Illinois State Fair all afternoon, not doing anything for Ron Paul other than voting for him.

There were about twice as many Romney supporters there as Paul supporters, but they were bussed in and all wearing the same white "Delegates committed to Mitt Romney" t-shirt. I heard of conversions from Romney to Paul after they had voted. I never saw a person carrying a sign for anyone other than Ron Paul, though there were plenty of Rudy signs stuck in the ground.

At the time of announcement, the Romney people hijacked the Illinois GOP's "Time for Change" signs, so they could pretend to be as enthusiastic as the Ron Paul supporters.

As per the comment below, 922 people voted.

Detailed results:

Mitt Romney: 40.35%
Fred Thompson: 19.96%
Ron Paul: 18.87%
Rudy Giuliani: 11.61%
John McCain: 4.12%
Mike Huckabee: 3.04%
Sam Brownback: 1.08%
Duncan Hunter: 0.65%
Tom Tancrado: 0.33%

Republican New Hampshire Debates

Ron Paul swept the only two informal online polls I could find after the NH debates on June 5, one on CNN, the other on MSNBC. Ron Paul was the only candidate who could answer every question starting from conservative Republican principles.

Pajamas Media Strawpoll

So I added the strawpoll widget from Pajamas Media today. I didn't do it because I really like Pajamas Media, but mostly just as an experiment to see how the polling precinct worked. They include all of and only the candidates who get at least 1% in the latest Gallup poll (scroll down to Election 2008).

If you don't like any of the candidates, don't vote!

Two Worlds

According to a CNN poll, my suspicion that people are not paying attention to the primary elections yet has merit. People are not being exposed to Ron Paul's message through the debates.

I cannot blame them. People have their own careers, families, and lives. It is healthy that most people do not pay attention to politics as much as some of us do. Politicians and pundits in the media really do seem to live in their own little bubble, isolated from the rest of the world.

Democratic New Hampshire Debates

I am commenting on the NH Democratic debates, so I have nothing profound to say.

Hillary Clinton claimed that everyone in the Republican debates supports Bush's war in Iraq. Ron Paul voted against the original authorization to use force and has been critical of it ever since. Is she ignorant, lying, or just forgetful?

Mike Gravel said he would do nothing about rising gas prices. That almost makes him sound like a free-market supporter.

Others candidates suggested that they would reducing subsidies to oil companies to lower gas prices. They need an economics lesson. You get more of something if you subsidize it. Subsidizing oil companies results in more oil products. More oil products results in lower prices. Reducing subsidizies will raise prices.

At first look, John Edwards' saying that Barack Obama being right, himelf being wrong, was impressive. Later it seemed disingenuous.

Ron Paul on Mail Delivery

Ron Paul said on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart tonight that he would open up the United States Postal Service to competition from companies like FedEx. It is currently illegal for anyone other than the USPS to deliver first class mail.

It is clear to me that Ron Paul is a puppet of the powerful parcel delivery lobby in Congress.

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Edited 6/5/07 to turn on readers' humor radar.

Ron Paul on YouTube

At last check Ron Paul has 13,788 subscribers, more than twice as many as Barack Obama with 6271, and far more than any other Republican presidential candidates.

Health of the State

"Government...neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters. There must be murder; and government cares not how much."

-Mr. Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Gandhi on Paul

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

--Mahatma Gandhi

Ron Paul has the benefit of chance as New Hampshire is the first primary in the elections. Of all the states in the country, New Hampshire is probably the most receptive to Ron Paul's message and has voters that are very independantly minded.

In particular, New Hampshire has been the home of some surprising primary results. Pat Buchanan won the Republicn primary there in 1996. If New Hampshire is receptive to Buchanan, they must be receptive to Paul, as Buchanan has made recent supportive comments about Paul. Buchanan agreed in 2005 that "The 9-11 terrorists were over here because we were over there."

This brings me to the quote. The Republican Party establishment started to fight Buchanan after he won the New Hampshire primary. They ignored Ron Paul after the first debate. They laughed at him after the second debate. Now they are fighting him. By the time we get to the primaries in early 2008, the country might be ready to help him win.

Contribute to Ron Paul's Campaign

I finally bit the bullet and donated to the campaign of Ron Paul. It wasn't a lot, but enough that it hurt a little.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert

According to The Late Night TV Page, Ron Paul will be on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart on June 4--the day before the CNN debate--and on The Colbert Report on June 13.

He Isn't Going to Win...

...so what?

I am bothered by notes that people make dismissing Ron Paul because they claim that he can't or isn't going to win the Republican nomination or the general election. The point is not to support the candidate you think will win. The point is to support the candidate you want to win.

If the figure of merit were to predict the winner with your support, then one would have to support the Nazi party in the 1920s. Picking candidates in an election should not be done the same way as picking stocks.

No!

Over the past few decades, Republicans in Congress have abandoned their principles of smaller government and non-interventionist foreign policy. It is time for rank and file republicans to start standing up to say "No!" to Republican politicians. I sincerely believe that a vote for Ron Paul is a vote to save the Republican Party.

Ron Paul's Performance in Internet Polls

Ron Paul has been performing well in internet and text-message polls, but he has not been performing so well in phone polls. Internet and text-message polls are non-scientific (the number of people voting in the polls is irrelevant), but I would like to make an attempt at more specific explanations. All seemingly factual statements below are strictly hypothetical and should be taken in context of the explanation. In no particular order:

1) Ron Paul supporters are more likely to be internet users than supporters of the other Republican candidates. His supporters are more likely to seek out news and commentary from alternative internet sites like blogs and are less likely to rely on establishment news like CNN.

2) One conventional explanation is that Ron Paul supporters are more organized. There is an army of supporters who are ready to vote in any and every poll available. As a Ron Paul suppoter, I have not seen such organization, per se. I see polls and links to polls scattered about in random places, whether it be the original source on a news site, comments placed on news articles, or in blogs. I have not seen an exhaustive list of polls in which Ron Paul supporters are asked to vote.

3) Another conventional explanation is that there are one or a handful of Ron Paul supporters voting repeatedly in the same poll. This is certainly possible, but taking proper measures such as IP logging should prevent this. One particular site suggesting this points out that this dishonest tactic does not reflect well upon the Ron Paul campaign, regardless whether it is being done by someone officially associated with the campaign or by some over-zealous Ron Paul supporter.

4) The above possibility and admonition led me to think of the possibility that an over-zealous supporter of some other Republican candidate is stuffing the electronic ballot boxes. One may do this to make the Ron Paul campaign look less than honest. I am not accusing anyone of doing this, and, no, I am not wearing a tin foil hat.

5) I would be surprised if many voters are paying close attention to the primary races this early in the election cycle. Those people voting in internet and text-message polls are those people who are paying attention to the campaign and the debates. They are hearing Ron Paul's message, and they are being pursuaded by it. The attentiveness of participants in phone polling lags that of the participants in internet polling. I read about people who are hearing about Ron Paul for the first time and are registering to vote so that they can cast their first vote for him. As Ron Paul's message reaches a wider audience, his phone polling numbers will rise.

6) Another conventional explanation is that liberal anti-war Democrats are crossing party lines to vote in Republican polls. This does not ring true to me. Ron Paul is very clear that he wants to eliminate the Department of Education, eliminate federal welfare programs, eliminate Social Security, and stop forcing states to provide state welfare and free education to immigrants. I cannot see a supporter of the welfare state voting for Ron Paul because the they agree with him on the sole issue of curbing the warfare state.

7) Ron Paul is garnering all of the anti-war vote in the Republican Party, while the pro-war vote is being split between the other nine candidates.

8) Ron Paul supports are more likely to be privacy advocates than supporters of other candidates. They do not answer their phone or do not have a phone at all. I have read Gallup's procedures. They call numbers quite randomly, so they do sample unlisted numbers. I do not know about cells phones. They may also just be too busy being productive citizens to sit by their phone all day waiting for a call from Gallup.

9) Many Ron Paul supporters are college students. College students at home or in a dorm rooms do not get sampled. This goes for anyone who is "institutionalized" (in the military, in a hosptial, in prison, etc.) in any way.

Whatever the reason I am enjoying watching various organizations discredit their own polls.

What is a Debate?

With talk of trying to remove Ron Paul from the Republican debates, I think it is apt to ask what exactly a debate is supposed to be. The first definition I found was "a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints" (emphasis mine).

The only two opposing viewpoints in the debate are Ron Paul's on Iraq and Rudy Giuliani's on abortion. The other eight candidates are virtually identical on every issue. If these two people are removed, these events would be closer to orgies than debates.

al-Sadr Urges Protection of Arab Christians

Moqtada al-Sadr is one of the United States' boogeymen in Iraq. He disappeared from the scene for a while, but now he is back.

According to an AP article:

"We demand the withdrawal of the occupation forces, or the creation of a timetable for such a withdrawal," he said... "I call upon the Iraqi government not to extend the occupation even for a single day."

I see no "We hate them for their freedoms" here.

Then, according to a Reuters article, he is "prepared to defend the interests of Sunni Muslims and Christians as well as majority Shi'ites." (The quote is from the article, not from al-Sadr.)

I take this to mean that they do not necessarily want to see a world converted to Islam. A CNN article used to report this, but the language about Arab Christians has mysteriously disappeared from their article.

Non Sequitur

Ron Paul gave his "Educating Rudy" press conference earlier today, giving Rudy Giuliani a reading list of foreign policy books. The response from the Giuliani campaign was striking. Quoting a Giuliani campaign spokesman from the article:

"It is extraordinary and reckless to claim that the United States invited the attacks on September 11th," Maria Comella said in an e-mail.

"And to further declare Rudy Giuliani needs to be educated on September 11th when millions of people around the world saw him dealing with these terrorist attacks firsthand is just as absurd."

This is a non sequitur of a lifetime. Does being abducted by aliens make one an expert in astronomy? Does the Giuliani campaign really think that Americans are this stupid?

Vast Neocon Conspiracy...

...against Ron Paul, or so says Jim Babka. He makes some good points on his DownsizeDC Conferance Call radio show, but I am not sold. I repeat the important disclaimer. The views that Jim Babka expresses on his show are not the views of DownsizeDC. My opinions of both the man and the organization are no way diminished based on this episode.

To summarize what this is about, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul had an exchange on Iraq during the second Republican debate. Ron Paul suggested that United States foreign policy was a significant part of the reason for the attacts on Semptember 11, 2001. Rudy Giuliani, in great fanfare, interrupted the flow of the debate to inaccruately say that Ron Paul thinks that America invited the attack, say that he had never heard of the idea, and declare it absurd.

Jim Babka bases his conspiracy idea on three main points. First, Ron Paul was asked the same question on his position on Iraq twice. No other candidates--I have not checked, but I believe him--were asked the same question twice. His first answer did not have the correct content to allow an opportunity for Rudy Giuliani to jump into the debate. A second questioner had to ask the same question again in order to get Ron Paul to set up his response in such a way that Rudy Giuliani could respond with his usual "they hate us for our freedoms." At the very least this is poor form for a debate with limited time. It would be more meaningful to ask a wide variety of question of each candidate.

Jim Babka's second point was the amount of applause the questioner and Rudy Giuliani received. The implication is that the audience knew what was coming.

Jim Babka's last point was that all commentators on both Fox News and CNN seemed to be reading from the same script. They were all claiming that Ron Paul said that he blames Septemeber 11, 2001, on America and that he should be removed from the debates. Again, the implication is that they all knew what was coming.

I appeal to Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one, and a bit of counter evidence.

The issue that differentiates Ron Paul from the other nine candidates is his position on Iraq. It is natural to ask him questions on that topic. I certainly agree with Jim Babka, though, that one question per debate is enough. We want to hear about other issues, too.

The applause and all of the commentators' agreement is a symptom of groupthink. After we saw the text-message poll results from Fox News and some longer interviews, cooler heads prevailed, and some commentators declared that Ron Paul was right, if not eloquent.

We also have to look at a bit of counter evidence. Tucker Carlson conducted an interview highlighting an exchange between Tommy Thompson and Ron Paul. Tommy Thompson was asked for three programs he would eliminate from the budget. He did not answer the question, giving platitudes about waste and inefficiency instead, as though waste and inefficiency were line items in the budget. When pressed, he did cite a single obscure program in the Department of Health and Human Services that no one has ever heard about. The questioner then turned to Ron Paul and asked "can you do better?" giving him an opportunity to highlight his superior conservative credentials.

In case you are wondering, he answered brilliantly: "I'd start with the departments: the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security."

Anyway, it makes no difference. It was a political mistake for Rudy Giuliani to give Ron Paul so much air time and make himself look like a lying ignoramus.

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5/29/2007 Editted to update a dead link.

Ron Paul's Cabinet

Okay, this post is for fun. First off, I will state a disclaimer. Normally, I think it is poor form to edit a post after it has been published, but I will freely edit this post whenever I like.

I was wondering what a Ron Paul administration might look like. I am pulling a list of cabinet level departments off of the White House's website and suggesting various secretaries for those departments.

Department of Agriculture -- eliminated
Department of the Interior -- eliminated
Department of Commerce -- eliminated
Department of Justice -- eliminated
Department of Defense -- Karen Kwiatkowski
Department of Labor -- eliminated or, perhaps, merged into a Department of Welfare under Mary Ruwart
Department of Education -- eliminated or, perhaps, Linda Schrock Taylor or Larry Arnn (not that they would have much to do)
Department of State -- Richard Maybury
Department of Energy -- eliminated
Department of Transportation -- eliminated
Department of Health and Human Services -- eliminated or, perhaps, merged into a Department of Welfare under Mary Ruwart
Department of the Treasury -- Terry Coxon
Department of Homeland Security -- eliminated
Department of Veterans Affairs -- merged with Department of Defense
Department of Housing and Urban Development -- eliminated or, perhaps, merged into a Department of Welfare under Mary Ruwart

Vice President -- Chuck Hagel
White House Chief of Staff -- Lew Rockwell
Office of National Drug Control Policy -- Steve Kubby
Press Secretary -- Jim Babka

This list is a work in progress and for entertainment purposes only. Ron Paul would have trouble getting many of these people to take government jobs.

Catholic Doctrine of Just War

Rudy Giuliani is Roman Catholic. I wonder how much he knows about the Catholic doctrine of just war.

Quality of Article Summary Matters on Digg

This is an experience I had with submitting my one and only article on Digg. It was a political news article, but I will leave the exact article and my user name over there out of it.

When I submitted the article, first I searched for the URL like the site suggested. I did not see it in the list, so I happily constructed my summary, chose a category, and submitted it. Much to my chagrin I noticed that the same article had already been submitted an hour or two ago. I must have missed it in the search results. So, I buried my own submission as a duplicate article, submitted my digg of the other article, left a comment, and left the site.

About a week later I went back, and much to my surprise I found that my submission of the article had been made popular with nearly 3700 diggs. The other submission was buried by another user for being a duplicate article and dropped off the site with 60-70 diggs.

The moral of the story, as the title of this post indicates, is that the quality of the article summary matters on Digg. On so many submissions over there, all I see is some flippant comment only marginally related to the topic of the article. What is much more useful as an article summary is a restatement of the thesis of the article and one or two supporting comments.

This post may also be useful.

DownsizeDC

Ron Paul supporters may want to consider joining DownsizeDC. This organization is non-partisan. Indeed, it is anti-partisan. I do not want to mischaracterize their position, but it is certainly fair to say that one of their co-founders, Jim Babka, supports Ron Paul's presidential run.

DownsizeDC takes a different approach to trying to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. They see that the political route--trying to elect the right people to politial office--is not very useful. The campaign finance and ballot access laws have the deck stacked in favor of the big government republicans and democrats so much that it is nearly impossible for a candidate for smaller goverment to get elected to public office. It costs so much money just to get these candidates on the ballot that they have nothing left to get their message out.

Instead, DownsizeDC is aiming to build a grassroots army so large that Congress has to listen. They want to apply mind numbing pressure on Congress to reduce the size of government. Congress will desperately want to get behind DownsizeDC's projects in order to be popular with their constituents. DownsizeDC is giving politicians an incentive that they currently do not have to support smaller government.

DownsizeDC's signature project is the Read the Bills Act (RTBA). This bill would require essentially two things: 1) Members of Congress would have to either listen to a word-for-word reading of each bill they plan on supporting by the clerk on the floor of their respective Houses or sign an affidavit indicating that they have read each bill they plan on supporting. 2) There would be a waiting period of seven days during which the bill would have to be posted on the internet in its final form before a vote on it is held.

DownsizeDC's system is very easy to use. You provide them with your email address and zip code so that they know in which Congressional district you live. Then, you send personalized messages to your two Senators and Representative at the press of a single button. Membership is free, but donations in the form of credit card pledges as little as three dollars a month are useful.

Check it out!

Rudy Giuliani Blames Americans for 9/11

Rudy Giuliani says that they hate us for our freedoms and equality for women. Since it is Americans who value freedom and equality for women, isn't Rudy Giuliani at least indirectly blaming Americans for September 11, 2001? With his logic if Americans treated women the same way they do in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, they would have no enmity toward us in spite of our government's bombing of Iraq on a regular basis for ten years.

I am twisting Rudy Giuliani's words. When Ron Paul suggests that foreign policy plays a role in hatred toward the government of the United States, and that is taken to mean that he blames America, his words are being twisted to a much greater degree.

Keep Ron Paul in the Debates

Saulius Anuzis (email, phone 517-487-5413, and fax 517-487-0090) and the Republican Party establishment are seeking to exclude Ron Paul from the Republican debates. Ron Paul on Iraq and Rudy Giuliani on abortion are the only two candidates who keep the debates interesting. The other eight candidates might as well be the same person.

You can contact Saul using the contact information above. You can also sign a petition urging the Republican National Committee to keep Ron Paul in the debates.

Tommy Thompson: World Dictator

I'll take a break from Ron Paul already on my second post and talk about something else.

I thought Tommy Thompson was asked a very good question during the Fox News Republican debate on May 15. During the May 3rd Republican debate, he stated that he would make the Iraqi goverment hold an up or down vote on whether or not the Iraqi people wanted the United States' military to stay in Iraq. The moderator on May 15 asked him by what authority he would do this. Thompson did not answer the question. Instead, he repeated his May 3rd response on why he favored such a vote.

I would welcome such a vote in Iraq, but someone needs to inform Tommy Thompson that he is not running for dictator of the world. Iraq is a sovereign country. The United States goverment has no authority to dictate what kinds of elections the Iraqi goverment must, is allowed to, or may not hold.

First in the South Republican Debate 2008

At least initially, this is going to be a place for me to write expressing support for Dr. Ron Paul's 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. I have some observations on the debate that was held May 15. The first is light hearted, the others are more serious.

Duncan Hunter said that he built the fence in San Diego to help stop illegal immigration. I suppose Al Gore invented the internet, too.

Ron Paul has made no secret over the past several years of his opposition to the in Iraq. The position that he takes contrary to the other nine candidates cannot hurt him at this point in the campaign.

After Ron Paul suggested that a significant reason for the attacks of September 11, 2001, Rudy Giuliani had what commentators started hailing as his shining moment. He said, and I have to paraphrase here, that he didn't think that he had heard anyone claim that before. In an interview immediately after the debate he said something quite different. He said that what he wanted to say was that Ron Paul's suggestion was the same thing that he heard from Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I wonder how he reconciles these two statements.

Now, Abdullah is the king of a large very influential country in the Middle East. If he is offering insight on the relationship between the United States' foriegn policy and Arabs' attitude toward the United States, shouldn't we listen to him? I would think that the king of Saudi Arabia would know more about Middle Eastern politics than the mayor of New York City. Being the mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001, doesn't make one an expert on foriegn policy.

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Edited 5/16/2007 to update minor facutal information