Is America Finally Ready for Ron Paul?
On Oct. 30, 2007, we got in a tussle with a reader. Can you imagine?
On that day, it was because we weren’t stumping for Ron Paul as conscientiously as Lew Rockwell.
This morning, we see we may yet get another chance. Dr. Paul is holding a press conference today in Iowa. We’re told he’ll launch an “exploratory committee” – that fateful first step toward a run for the presidency.
In 2007, we suggested the country – pre-Lehman, pre-stimulus, pre-bailouts – wasn’t ready for the medicine Dr. Paul prescribes.
Perhaps now that we’ve seen a few trillion-dollar deficits and a community organizer who’s proven equally adept at military adventurism as his “aw, shucks” predecessor… a few more people are willing to go to the pharmacy… or, at the very least wondering now what that mysterious lump is.
“This would seem to be an ideal year for Paul,” muses the Washington wonk weekly National Journal: “Since the last election, the Republican Party has moved much closer to his view on deficit reduction. All of the party’s top-tier presidential hopefuls are focusing on lowering debt, government spending and tax rates, issues Paul has long advocated.”
“Ron Paul Is Starting to Make Sense,” reads the headline the May issue of Esquire. He “is the most important politician in America today,” the profile begins, “because he’s the rare politician – maybe the only politician – who always says exactly what he really believes.
“Unlike Paul Ryan, Haley Barbour, Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels and Mike Huckabee, who all raised taxes while calling for lower taxes, Ron Paul gives us a chance to examine the ideas currently driving the conservative movement in their pure form.”
We’ll see.
One way to examine those ideas is by reading this review penned by our own Gary Gibson.
While Dr. Paul is away in Iowa, the nabobs in Washington are twittering over two “competing visions” of the way forward – the 12-year budget plan of the president and the 10-year plan of Rep. Paul Ryan.
We can see why. The difference between them is “vast”:
Hmmn… shall we raise the national debt by 84% in the next 10 years, or merely 62%? To even suggest the national credit card may be revoked long before then… well, that makes you a “kook” in these parts.
Still for a growing number of people in “flyover country,” it’s starting to make sense… and get real.
Addison Wiggin
for The Daily Reckoning
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