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No, too old. Would be another McCain fiasko.
Nobody really cares about the age thing.
No, too old. Would be another McCain fiasko.
Nobody really cares about the age thing.
Imagine if Gingrich had somehow managed to pull off the GOP after his little Rip Van Winkle on video.Oh yes they do. All it takes is an interview or debate where he shows his age and his numbers will plummet. And like McCain, the VP choice would be critical and almost more important than the candidate himself. Remember Richard Nixon and Kennedy? Nixon looked "sick" on the first televised debates.. and he lost the election to the actually sick Kennedy (back problem). Visual perception is important.
Imagine if Gingrich had somehow managed to pull off the GOP after his little Rip Van Winkle on video.
While visual perception is a good deal of how it is judged, thus Romney’s age was never talked about even though he would have been quite old, the underlying reason is sound. The job is grueling.
I don’t believe Ron Paul could have won is he ran as a Libertarian, BUT if he had won the Republican nomination I think there is a very good chance he would have won.
Why? First, most Republicans are going to vote to for the Republican, regardless. So I think the overwhelming majority who voted for Romney would have voted for Ron Paul if he had been the nominee. Second, the Libertarians would have turned out in droves to vote for him. Third, there are plenty of lefties who would have at least given serious thought to the idea of voting for Ron Paul based on his liberal views about foreign policy, the war on drugs, and the government’s encroachment on civil liberties.
I am as liberal as they come and while I wouldn’t vote for him, I would have preferred him over Romney, which means it is likely many more independents and centrists would have left Obama for Paul.
So what do you all think?
I don’t believe Ron Paul could have won is he ran as a Libertarian, BUT if he had won the Republican nomination I think there is a very good chance he would have won.
Why? First, most Republicans are going to vote to for the Republican, regardless. So I think the overwhelming majority who voted for Romney would have voted for Ron Paul if he had been the nominee. Second, the Libertarians would have turned out in droves to vote for him. Third, there are plenty of lefties who would have at least given serious thought to the idea of voting for Ron Paul based on his liberal views about foreign policy, the war on drugs, and the government’s encroachment on civil liberties.
I am as liberal as they come and while I wouldn’t vote for him, I would have preferred him over Romney, which means it is likely many more independents and centrists would have left Obama for Paul.
So what do you all think?
I'm sorry, I'm liberal and there is no way I'd consider Ron Paul. He had plans to cut five departments from the government, starting with the Department of Education. He would do away with FEMA. He would more than likely do away with Health and Human Services and certainly The Affordable Care Act. I know there are more but it's late.
Once liberals and progressive got the full display of what a President Paul would offer, there is no way we could vote for him.
EDIT: I believe he wants to do away with Medicare and Social Security too.
LOLI think Herman Cain would have had a much better shot at winning than Ron Paul.
And you were considering Romney? Not likely. He certainly would not sway big government Democrats.
Third, there are plenty of lefties who would have at least given serious thought to the idea of voting for Ron Paul based on his liberal views about foreign policy, the war on drugs, and the government’s encroachment on civil liberties.
1) Not when you erode 2 powerful bases of Republican support: foreign policy and social conservatism
2) Libertarians come out in droves.....okay, how many droves? College kids don't count for crap in that market either.
3) Liberals would give "serious thought" for Ron Paul, might even praise him (as so many did only a 6 years ago), but then would immediately pull the trigger for Obama. Libertarians threaten the existence of almost all of their domestic policy agenda. No way would liberals go for that, and if they did, they would have sour grapes as soon as Paul had his fingers on the budgets for those programs. Liberal stupidity and short-sightedness does not account for either the numbers who would vote for him, nor for his ability to maintain support of that coalition.
I was responding to this in the OP:
I'm a lefty who wouldn't have given any serious thought to Ron Paul.
Or any Republican. That's my point. You are not likely to vote for any Republican.
Frankly, I think Gary Johnson offered a better mix and would have been more electable as a Republican than Paul.
You don't know me or my political history, so don't assume you know my thinking on this issue.
I was a moderate Republican and nothing could convince me to vote for Ron Paul even back then. As a moderate, I don't cotton to Paul's extreme ideas, or to libertarianism at all, no matter the candidate who represents it.
He would have gotten trounced. Romney was the only realistic shot that the GOP had, and and even then he was doing dismally until he pivoted to the middle in the first debate. Sure Ron Paul would have gotten kudos for being principled and honest, but he would have been slaughtered in the general.I don’t believe Ron Paul could have won is he ran as a Libertarian, BUT if he had won the Republican nomination I think there is a very good chance he would have won.
Why? First, most Republicans are going to vote to for the Republican, regardless. So I think the overwhelming majority who voted for Romney would have voted for Ron Paul if he had been the nominee. Second, the Libertarians would have turned out in droves to vote for him. Third, there are plenty of lefties who would have at least given serious thought to the idea of voting for Ron Paul based on his liberal views about foreign policy, the war on drugs, and the government’s encroachment on civil liberties.
I am as liberal as they come and while I wouldn’t vote for him, I would have preferred him over Romney, which means it is likely many more independents and centrists would have left Obama for Paul.
So what do you all think?
Yeah, that is why I asked you the question. There is no point in GOP running Democrats.
A moderate Republican that does not support libertarianism, at all... What does that look like? Who are some of the Republicans you have supported with a vote or contribution?
Perhaps I should clarify, that when I think of Libertarianism, I think of no EPA and bare bones regulation. In other words extremely small government. I can't go with that.
Ronald Reagan and the first George H.W. Bush. Yes, I consider, looking back, Reagan a moderate. I didn't like his union busting and embrace of the Moral Majority, but he worked with O'Neill to make government work.
He was a substantive conservative. But program budget realities made it difficult to budge further, and at that time he refused to denounce FDR and the New Deal. That's a substantive change from Republicans decades prior to his arrival, but he was still a decently strong conservative. If you want to consider his stances as well as end results in governance in comparison to libertarianism, yes, then he would come off as a moderate-but then so would everyone else the the "economic/government Left" of libertarians, and to the Right of economic/government liberals.