Sunday, December 2, 2007

Media Tries to Blow Down Straw Poll Paul

Plymouth, NH -

Ron Paul puts his pants on just like the rest of the GOP candidates - one leg at a time. Except, once his pants are on, he wins straw polls. This time he dominated in Virginia. I think this is something like the 12th straw poll he has won now. I know they don't mean much, but at some point they have to mean something.

Paul - 38%
Thompson - 23% (whose surrogate was VA GOP's favorite son George Allen)
Huckabee - 11%
Giuliani - 9%

Which bring me to my other point, why was the MSM afraid to give Ron Paul any propers for his debate performance Wednesday?

Although his speaking time, 7:11, put him in the middle of the pack and very near Mike Huckabee (9:47) and the drawling Fred Thompson (10:25), Paul was widely ignored in most debate reviews.

The New York Times' sole mention of Paul had to do with his quip about fundraising.
And Representative Ron Paul of Texas, whose libertarian, anti-war candidacy has made him a surprise fund-raising sensation on the Internet, allowed that he was “struggling to figure out how to spend the money.”

In The Fix, Chris Cilizza gave Paul only passing mention as the object of a motion by John McCain.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) challenged Rep. Ron Paul over the idea of whether American troops should be removed from Iraq immediately. "That kind of isolationism, sir, is what caused World War II," McCain said to a mixture of cheering and booing from the crowd. "We allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude and appeasement." Paul responded that he had more campaign donations from active military men and women than any other Republican candidate.
Yet he completely failed to include a key component of that back-and-forth, when Paul told McCain he didn't understand the difference between isolationism and non-interventionism, and furthermore that the crowd wildly cheered Paul as he gave his anti-war answer that led McCain to go after him.

Furthermore, there was absolutely no mention of the exchange that drew McCain's real ire in the first place. The Arizona Senator is fond of repeating a line, which he has been saying for years, about the Republicans going to Washington to change it, but how Washington changed them. Well, Ron Paul went out of his way with his first chance to say "I don't think that applies to me. Washington didn't change me." You could see McCain bristle while Paul exposed McCain's establishment credentials.

There was another tete-a-tete between the two white hairs later on when McCain interrupted once again to point out that America never lost a battle in Vietnam. Paul instantly hit back with the point that the Vietnamese Colonel Tu said in a meeting with the American Colonoel Summers, who made the same point, "yes, but that is irrelevant." Again, the crowd cheered on Ron Paul's sentiment.

Over at First Read, the editorial crew gave Paul some credit for sounding rational in the face of irrationality.
Paul does a pretty good job of sounding rational when posed with somewhat irrational questions. His trilateral commission answer didn't sound conspiratorial even though the whole premise of the question is just that: conspiratorial.
In other words, a backhanded compliment. They're saying he is an articulate coot. It is oddly reminiscent of the Kucinich UFO question.

My initial reaction to the debate was the Huckabee put in a great performance, Romney was all over the place mostly due to his overtly visceral pandering instinct, and Giuliani stunk up the joint. The MSM picked up on this loud and clear. But the thing they didn't notice is that Ron Paul bitch slapped John McCain left and right with sound reasoning in the face of patriotistic jingoism. Its not about the troops winning. Its about life and death, human dignity and Iraqi freedom, and the honor of American values. Ron Paul understands this, and if you watch the video again, so did the voters in the crowd. MSM - don't be afraid.

2 comments:

Peace Czar said...

Paul's nonstop straw poll victories... analagous to Kucinich's straight up domination of the DFA state polls, winning 47 states?!?!

Ron Paul brought the fury on McCain, and reactions are lukewarm to nonexistent. Let's cut through the hogwash and have Paul debate Huckabee... a true battle of wits.

CB said...

That would definitely be an entertaining debate. Ron Paul, an econ right/social left vs Huckabee, an econ left/social right. wow! I believe Huckabee might actually need Chuck Norris for that one.