Off-Topic

Because we are all pretending that this bunch of chumps will actually beat O'Bamma. This election will go down like the Dukakis Bush one, except this time the Mass Gov. is on the Pub side. Only question is if Mitten's loss will prevent the Pubs from taking the Senate.

There are plenty of Obama vs Paul polls under 10% and the generic Republican usually is beating Obama, so basically no matter who wins even if someone like Bachmann a large majority of Republicans would get behind them vs Obama and it would be a dead heat

Worse.

Except that (1) the Presidential line-item veto has been ruled unconstitutional, (2) the legislative branch, not the executive branch, makes cuts in spending, and (3) Paul has been a member of the legislative branch for decades and had 0 success in convincing anyone to do much of anything, let alone make drastic cuts in spending.

I'm not sure why everyone just suspends political reality when talking about a Paul presidency. I'm pretty sure Paul making the drastic cuts he talks about is even more unrealistic, political speaking, than Paul somehow managing to get elected.

The real story here will be when Paul runs as a third party candidate. He's being mighty coy about the possibility now when in the past he's flatly denied it. Romney winning would probably be the most likely scenario we see a challenge from the right.

He would pull us out of the current Wars and he could order the Justice Dept to start prosecutions of people involved in the Bankster frauds and the guns for the cartels deal. He could order the Justice Dept to investigate the Fed and look into the enormous ripoffs and insider deals at DoD and other security agencies that are "national security related". I assume he would remove the military from running most of the Security agencies and force a real review of the defense needs of the country vs a high tech wish list for the contractors.

Other than that its hard to see what he could really do. Any cuts he made on defense would be restored by congress.

One change he could order is for the Bureau of Labor statistics and Department of Commerce to publish the real inflation and employment numbers using the methodologies of the early 70s so that the numbers can be compared to previous years. Reagan, Bush 1 & 2, Clinton and the current gang have changed the formulas multiple times in an attempt to hide the job losses and the inflation rate over the last 30 years.

"GDI Indicates No U.S. Economic Growth in Either Second- or Third-Quarter 2011"

LOL @ all of you dopes actually engaging Coltsfan.

A bit off the main topic, but Ben Nelson announcing he will not run again makes it even tougher for the Dems to keep the Senate.

Paul's problem will ultimately come down to his foreign policy stance. On the face of it, people like the idea of not getting involved in wars and nation building.

The problem crops up with a hypothetical of Iran blocking the Straits of Hormuz. Paul will say if we stay out of Iran's business, they won't do that. The issue is, what if they did? He has no answer other than a laissez faire approach. People can't get comfortable envisioning the leader of the free world putting their head in the sand on this, or the idea that he would not have intervened with Hitler. I know a lot of conservatives/libertarians who like a lot of what Paul has to offer, but this is the deal killer.

If we were voting strictly on Fed policy, I would take Paul all day. Unfortunately it is one piece of a very big puzzle.

Ron Paul doesn't want to be the leader of the free world, he wants to be the President of the United States.

The question that's going to be answered in this election is whether that's a distinction that can be made at this point in history.

FDR didn't intervene with Hitler until after Germany declared war on the US following Pearl Harbor. Its not like the US had a choice after that. Most in the US hoped that Hitler (30 million killed) and Stalin (50 Million killed) would wipe each other out.

When did you want the US to intervine ? From September 1939 until June 1941 Hitler and Stalin were allies and had crushed 7 countries between them.

So you are saying Ron Paul sounded like April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq who :

In an extraordinary interview with the Iraqi leader on July 25, 1990, she told Hussein, "I have a direct instruction from the President to seek better relations with Iraq." She also stated that the United States had "no opinion" on inter-Arab disagreements, including Baghdad's border dispute with Kuwait. Hussein, who no doubt was pleased by Glaspie's subservient manner, probably found this sufficient diplomatic inference to conclude that officials at the highest levels in Washington would not object strenuously to an Iraqi takeover of Kuwait (or, at least, some portion thereof ) .
In the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion, Glaspie's statements were much criticized in Congress. She was, however, merely articulating the prevailing White House view.