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Four years ago, I dropped the "R" from my voter registration card. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision. In my home state, one can register when 17, although you can't actually vote until that all-important 18th birthday. So for close to 20 years, I carried that "R" in my wallet. Along the way, I served a brief stint as a College Republican, and even helped convince my 80-year old grandmother the Democrats were no longer the party she once knew.
What goes around, comes around. I didn't leave the Republicans... they left me. Even without 9/11, the cognitive dissonance between talk of "small government with personal responsibility" contrasted with "Medicare drug benefits and No Child Left Behind" became too great. Dubya may have won reelection, but it wasn't with my help.
Today, though, I held my nose and put the "R" back on, for one simple reason: to help Ron Paul's primary campaign. His opponents claim he's no true Republican, that his support comes only from the fringe, both right and left. Sure, his campaign's attracted the odd duck or two (unlike others' criminal buddies), but I think his critics seriously underestimate how many people like me are out there. My small-government-libertarian-Constitutional brand of Republicanism predates Giuliani's spin, Newt's '94 Revolution, and Bush the Elder's "New World Order." If America's to have much of a future, it better outlast all of them, too. Congressman Paul is the only one carrying that standard this election cycle. As he so eloquently put it on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show," he has his shortcomings, "but the message has no shortcomings. The message of liberty is what America is all about."
I suspect Republican Party insiders will shortly rue the day they rebuffed the Texas congressman in favor of the likes of Rudy "mega-liberal-except-for-9/11" Giuliani. The more they resemble the Democrats, the less they have a reason to exist.
Oh, and by the way, today those "fringe" supporters managed to donate over $2.5 million in one day in a coordinated, grass roots campaign. I don't see anybody else generating this kind of rank-and-file excitement. It's all about the message. As far as I'm concerned, the "R" I took back stands for Revolution this time.
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UPDATE: Make that over $3.5 million, from 22,000+ donors! And counting. It's going to be a LOT harder to ignore this campaign now. Not that many won't try...
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2 comments:
I think Mr. Paul might find more support if he dropped the "R" himself and represented the people. "Rs" and "Ds" are pretty unacceptable brandings these days. We need leaders not parties or affiliations to lend credibility.
Perhaps, but the strategy seems to be using the party system against itself. The deck is stacked against him by the GOP leadership, but by staying registered, he not only makes the point that HIS views are the traditional Republican stance, but puts them in the position of including him in the debates. They've done their best to marginalize him there, but in the first couple events he made some points I believe got a few peoples' attention and aided what is now a viral marketing campaign that's beyond the GOP's control. It's the message, not the letter after the candidates' name that counts.
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