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Tuesday 22 May 2012

The Ron Paul Revolution

When Mitt Romney secures the Republican presidential nomination, it's pretty clear the last man standing against him will be Ron Paul. The Texas Congressman will be outgunned for sure but he is the only one of Romney's rivals with the money and the doggedness to keep going even after it becomes clear Romney is going to be the nominee. As Freddy observed earlier, Ron Paul's result in New Hampshire was properly remarkable.

Four years ago, Paul won 8% of the vote in the Granite State. That was a pretty nifty result for a candidate who had been almost entirely ignored by the mainstream press and, on the rare occasions he was granted a moment in the TV glare, generally mocked. Last night he trebled his vote in New Hampshire, a reward for a long march and the happy consequences of Republican over-reach, economic calamity and his own refusal to change a thing about himself.

Watching his speech and the rapturous reception he received from his adoring faithful (Paul's people really like Paul) you could be forgiven for thinking he, not Romney, was the actual victor. And in a modest way he was. Paul's views on many issues (notably the Federal Reserve and foreign policy) remain well outside the Republican mainstream but they demand a hearing now in ways they never did before. That's quite an achievement for his campaign. He will continue to take 10% of the vote in the primaries to come. 

Not because even Paul's supporters (at least not the less cultish part of his following) necessarily agree with him on everything but because he is, whatever his shortcomings, the purest rejection of Bushian conservatism available to voters this time around. Moreover, there's a touch of Howard Beale about Paul and the Paulites. They're mad as hell and unwilling to take it any longer.

His speech last night was, in its way, one of the more extraordinary moments of the campaign. I doubt CNN and Fox News (for whom Paul, incidentally, is anathema) have ever before devoted quite such extensive coverage to a cheery critique of the Federal Reserve qua Federal Reserve. "Fiat money" is not the sort of thing you hear much about, most of the time. And this, to a television audience likely bigger than most he has ever enjoyed, was what Paul led his speech with! There must have been many viewers who wondered just what the hell was going on.

And yet that is part of Paul's appeal. He so plainly does not care what anyone else has to say. He has his ideas and his message and, darn it, he's going to tell you all about it even if, as it probably will, it takes him all night. It's rare to come across a candidate quite so unfiltered and, the politics of the age being what they are, this gives Paul a mildly-kooky "authenticity" that gives you license to forgive his more idiosyncratic notions. (It helps, of course, that he is not burdened with any sensible expectation of actually winning the damn circus). As Peter Suderman says, "The most effective anti-Romney turns out to be someone who is genuinely not like Mitt Romney."

That won't be enough to stop Romney but it's enough to be going on with right now and, yes, it paves the way for his son Rand, the junior Snator from Kentucky, to run in four years time. This too is no small achievement for a campaign that began in humble obscurity five years ago.

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