Yes, you are right, it is speculation. However, it is informed speculation. All generic Republicans hate Muslims, not all so much. I think judging by their rhetoric, you'd be hard pressed to deny this. A few of them had made inflammatory marks about gays. All of them want to cut back on entitlement spending, which greatly effects minorities. All of them are for the Bush tax cuts for the 1%.
Most reasonably informed people understand that most of the Republican candidates do not "hate" Muslims. That Herman Cain took an extreme anti-Muslim hiring position early on does not speak for all the candidates. That all of the Republican candidates failed to rebuke an audience member who booed a gay serviceman was short-sighted. That Senator Santorum is a cultural conservative does not mean that all of the candidates embrace his positions, much less to the degree he does.
The Republicans want to reform the entitlement programs and each has his/her view on how to go about doing so in order to provide savings. The plans of some are more credible than the plans of others. Ron Paul, though, goes much farther. If one examines Ron Paul's
plan, one finds, for example:
- An immediate 34% cut in Medicaid expenditures (the program that funds health care for low-income persons and long-term care for certain elderly persons)
- Afterward, Medicaid would be capped at the same level. By 2016, Paul's Medicaid block grant would have reduced Medicaid spending by more than 55% from CBO's baseline.
With national medical costs likely to continue to rise barring fundamental health care reform or some industry/technology development that changes the cost trajectory, the only way such drastic reductions could be achieved is via a loss of coverage. Given the program's beneficiaries, that means more low-income persons and elderly persons would lack coverage. Hence, if your hypothesis about "half" the nation voting based on their use of entitlements would turn them off from the other Republican candidates, Paul's positions would be even more likely to do so.
If one looks more deeply at Paul's plan one also notices:
- No more National Weather Service (via Commerce Department elimination). FWIW, NWS runs the supercomputers and satellites and data networks from which public and private forecasts are developed. That move would turn off many in the energy, agriculture, shipping, aviation, and other weather-sensitive industries, not to mention private forecasters who use the data. It would also raise a genuine public safety issue e.g., during hurricane season.
- Immediate 62.5% reduction in Food Stamps; more reason for low-income persons and others displaced by the recent recession to vote against him.
- Possible elimination of unemployment benefits (the Paul document includes no provisions for the Department of Labor) raising questions about the fate of unemployment insurance under a Paul Administration; unemployment insurance enjoys broad-based support; eliminating the program altogether is very different from arguing that there should be a finite period during which an individual can receive benefits.
In sum, Paul's policy document would probably turn off even more of the audience you suggest would logically gravitate to Paul. IMO, its exactly his policy prescriptions, not a lack of awareness of Paul's positions, that have made it difficult for him to gain traction in the polling. If so, even if he somehow secured the Republican nomination, he would likely face a landslide defeat under the present circumstances.
Personally, I strongly believe there needs to be credible fiscal consolidation for the medium-term and beyond, including reform of the major entitlement programs. But fiscal consolidation cannot be carried out in such a destructive fashion that the costs vastly outweigh the benefits. Given his document, it appears that Paul would take that destructive path.
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