Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Ron Paul Phenomenon

It looks to me like Republican Ron Paul is getting more enthusiasm, support, and contributions from LP members than I've ever seen before. I bet he's taken in more money, and gotten Libertarian Party (LP) members to work more hours, than the entire party gets in a typical [year, decade, eternity?]. He gets some of his strongest support from the anarcho-libertarians, even though several important Ron Paul policies are incompatible with their beliefs. Party members need to think about this.

Surely Dr Paul gets lots of publicity by being in the GOP, which puts him on TV in political debates that seem to occur almost every week. But most LP members don't care much about that venue or party. The official party candidates are getting almost zero attention, which is normal on the mainstream national level but not necessarily among party members.

What is it? Can the Ron Paul phenomenon be leveraged by the LP now or in the future? If libertarians can only get this much attention by running in one of the big two parties, then maybe Libertarians need to think about turning the party into an activist wing of one of those parties and field libertarian candidates there.

Or maybe Ron Paul is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon capitalizing on a unique alignment of the stars.

Has there been any discussion of this on any blogs or e-mail lists?

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