Topic: GOP - Rand Paul's Presidential Highlight Reel w/ his Libertarian Twist - page 98. (Read 205816 times)

The Republicans are too crazy and too divided to be a real threat. The conservative people in the US (mostly the south) still vote for them, but even they are starting to realize how absolutely crazy these guys are...not to say the Democrats are saints, but at least they haven't been trying to shove trickle-down economics down people's throats for decades.

It is obvious that most people feel like some abstract "The Man" doesn't speak for them, but oddly enough, there is no congressman with a <9% approval rating. They're often in the high 40s or 50s, often 60-85% for established candidates. If you average them all, you probably get something like a 45-60% approval rating. People are either stupid or ignorant. The only other explanation I can think of is that the US is way, way too large to be effectively governed and really needs to be sectioned off, where what's now the USG acts more like the EU (which a good many Europeans will even tell you is too much government for too much diversity). Of course, we fought a civil war over that, so the chance of the federal USG ever taking a step back and letting people be governed with laws they apparently approve of 45-60% as opposed to 9% is around 0%.

What shows that politicians don't speak for the people is the very low voter turnout in the US in years when only voting for Congressmen rather than the $x billion "political Superbowl" in presidential-voting years (~37-42% in 2010, though it's usually only ~50% in pres. years), which can arguably be seen as a "none of the above" option, which the various US governments have been very active in trying to prevent, perhaps out of worry the US may look anti-American (undemocratic). I don't buy the apathy argument. Maybe people are apathetic toward voting, but that doesn't necessarily indicate apathy toward government or society.

(I don't have the bandwidth to view the Rand backpeddling video - don't mean to ignore it)

well, yeah.. that or some billionaire tries to inject some money into the political system to create a 3rd party. no doubt that party would have issues, but i think it would help not having 1 of 2 choices.. but then again, if they are to sustain their power, they'd have to sell out to large corporations.

You mean like the 100% turnout in heavily democratic Philadelphia precincts in 2012? Really proud day for my state right there.

Like the systemic election fraud that makes results the exact opposite of what 91% of Americans want, if that 9% approval rating is correct.

He is in favor of nuclear power which is cleaner. He is also in favor of not using executive orders to drive up energy prices in the middle of a jobless economy. His words were not exactly a manifesto against coal as the author would like us to believe. 

For a third party to even get beyond 5% would require a certain percentage of us to actually think about real stuff. Not too likely in the reality tv era.

congress have an approval rating of something like 9%.. it is obvious that most people feel like the parties do not speak for them, and there are plenty of people who want a third party.. it's just that they don't have enough money to buy influence for one.

and back to the topic, here is rand paul backtracking on what he said.. he's not pro-coal, when he was against it in 2008 http://news.yahoo.com/in-2008--rand-paul-called-coal--the-least-favorable-forms-of-energy-164651153.html

i wonder what has influenced his change of mind.. could it be that coal is lubing up his ass hole? obama may be a sellout, but rand paul is not much better.

I don't think that the injection of any amount of money can change the system. Right now, the major parties are backed up by the powerful demographic blocks. For example, the Democrats enjoy wide-spread support from the minorities (one-third of the population), while the GOP is backed by the religious right (another 1/3rd of the population). There is simply not enough space for a third party.

well the issue is that it's so pronounced that america, more than any other country, has tied money with politics. it's ridiculous how much money is spent on the campaign trails. in order for a 3 party system to work, the point of singularity needs to hit.. but they'd need billions of dollars "invested."

The Americans are stuck with the two-party system, and I don't foresee any chance of changing it, at least for the next few decades. The Libertarian Party is stuck at around 2% support nation-wide, while the Greens get even less nationally.

OTOH, you also don't know about the person who didn't win either.  I personally think that Al Gore would have been one of the better and more effective presidents in recent memory.  At the end of the day, though, I'm glad that Bush 'won' even though I detested the guy and his (or actually Cheney's) policies.  I think that there is a very good chance that Gore would have had an unfortunate accident leading to a President Lieberman and within a few years would have nuked all of Israel's enemies and lost way more troops in the Middle East.  Dick Cheney was at least an America-firster though he used a lot of the other Israel-firsters as bitches which made him look like more of one himself than he probably was.

I didn't support Clinton in 2008 for the same reason I won't support her in 2016.  I had her pegged as either a Neocon or hopelessly beholden to them.  Six years later, I now consider her a straight up Neocon.

In 2012 it would not have broken my heart to see Romney.  As you say, one never really knows.  We already knew for sure that Obama was an unmitigated disaster.  Of course it was possible that in his final term he'd turn out to be a little bit better, but I thought the possibility remote.  Sure enough...he's as much of a loser in his second term as he was in the first.  If not more!

that's what i said about obama. you don't know how they'll be until they are in office.

it would be cool if there were some rich billionaire who died and decided to donate all of his money to starting a 3rd party...

I am not saying that Rand Paul is the ideal candidate for the POTUS. I would love to see someone like Jesse Ventura elected to the office. But we have to be realistic. Right now, Rand Paul is the lesser one among the evils.

Although Rand Paul has some of the right kinds of instincts on some issues, he strikes me as someone who doesn't see things coming and doesn't really know what to do about things after they happen.  He seems kind of insulated and isolated in an Aspergers-ish sort of way.  After on of his aids tried to head-stomp some woman and Paul's reaction to it (or lack thereof) I feel that he just does not really have the kind of attention span or awareness or spine to be much of a leader.  I'm concerned that he would be immediately surrounded by fairly nasty people and would not have the capability of recognizing it or controlling them.  Just the opposite most likely.

Encouraging news for Rand Paul....

Rand Paul’s Getting a Lot of Votes in a Very Interesting Poll

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/19/rand-pauls-getting-a-lot-of-votes-in-a-very-interesting-poll/

Rand Paul, Jeb Bush tied for lead in 2016, poll says

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/politics-blog/2014/05/07/paul-and-bush-bare-favorites-in-spread-gop-field/8813565/

It's in the primary where one can see what interests are lining up where. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is casino magnet in Vegas and his main issues are keeping online gambling illegal and constant warfare and military-industrial complex money being spent and burned on behalf of Israel. In other words, an extreme interventionist foreign policy that the likes of prospective presidential candidates Bush, Santorum, Christie, Romney, Rubio, et al. would toe the slab for. There was some republican jewish conference last month and the main topic on the table w/o mentioning it was the rise of Rand Paul. So, the war hawks and the govt-subsidized big business folk would back the former types while Rand is trying to appeal to people like us, fiscal hawks, privacy advocates and true freer market business types. He's just not trying to be hated by the war hawks so he's threading the needle when framing foreign policy arguments.

Rand has his own chest of rich folk that he's lining up and I'm sure many of us here will be able to max out to his campaign in addition to perhaps starting a pro-Crypto/BTC PAC w/ excess funds to help him in key states if needed to counteract the FUD and nonsense that will undoubtedly be spewed by the corporatists and war hawks. All that said, if he makes it as the GOP nominee you'll see the former Bush-Christie folks swing over back to their hawks in the Democratic party and support their nominee be it Hillary (if she runs), Biden or whoever they get the media to manufacture support for.

Rand is already in General Election mode and you can see it be his constant meetings w/ and appeals to blacks by pushing sentencing reform, charter schools (school choice) and economic freedom zones for depressed areas; privacy issues such as pushing back at the NSA which resonates hugely w/ the youth demo that the Dems have owned for so long; and women on issues such as toughening penalties on sexual assault in the military. His major obstacle, in my eyes, is not being too libertarian on social issues such as abortion cause you don't want to alienate the single-issue Evangelical voters in playing to the woman vote as woman typically vote democrat and you probably can't outdo the dems on pro-abortion issues.

Here is more good news for Rand Paul!

Home-court advantage: Ky. voters narrowly prefer Rand Paul over Hillary Clinton for president

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/17/3247423/home-court-advantage-ky-voters.html

how's he going to make a difference when he has to sell himself out to big corporations and billionaires? in our last election cycle, i think obama had something like $700 million to romney's $600. in order for rand paul to be elected president, he'd have to fundraise probably even more than the last election.. a big chunk of it will be from big corporations or billlionaires who will want "favors." that's why i don't need to read his papers; because our political system is rigged so that even if someone truly wanted to make a difference, it'd still be impossible.

edit: they spent, collectively, $2 billion. unprecedented.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2012/11/07/obama_and_romney_collectively_spent_2_billion_this_election_cycle

You guys really think rand paul would make a difference?
Have you ever read the articles he wrote for his school paper in college? (they can be found online)
Yes, Rand Paul can make a difference.*
*If nothing else (with some help from Bitcoin), he can get blamed for crashing the economy.