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Ron Paul, new Republican

An American conservative who loves the Constitution

Christopher Caldwell

Wednesday, 12th December 2007

Christopher Caldwell on the impact of Ron Paul, the anti-war congressman running for the Republican nomination and finding unexpected support on the web

Paul’s anti-war message remains the centre of his candidacy. It is the least radical thing about him. Paul likes the traditional description of Jesus as the Prince of Peace. On the eve of the Iraq war, when other politicians were reading manuals on arms-control policy and biographies of Churchill, Paul immersed himself in St Augustine. Asked last June at a New Hampshire debate to name the most pressing moral issue facing the US, Paul replied, ‘We have rejected the just-war theory of Christianity.’

Paul has risen to 5 per cent in the polls. That is not enough to win next month’s New Hampshire primary, but it is not far, either, from where Pat Buchanan was polling before he won New Hampshire in 1992. Recent months have complicated the political calculus. The 2006 elections, in which Republicans were chased from power across the country, were an unambiguous negative verdict on the Iraq war. But the troop surge and the change in strategy engineered by General David Petraeus have stabilised the battlefield situation. The political costs of the war have fallen to a level where they are sustainable indefinitely. Democrats committed to removing troops from Iraq have been hedging more, and pontificating less.

Paul’s anti-war position, based as it is on Christianity and the Constitution, has been less easily shaken. Next month will tell whether he can keep his momentum now that Americans have made plain that they don’t object to the war as much as they object to losing it.

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Norm

January 14th, 2008 2:23am

Republicans and democrats are interchangeable. I have never voted in a primary before now. Guaranteed, I will vote this time, however if Dr. Paul does not win the nomination, I will never vote for the lesser of two evils again. It's Ron Paul or it's nothing period.

Bob Pylant

January 14th, 2008 2:54am

Boy, you sure nailed the head on our USA mentality.. i.e. we dont mind the war as long as we are loosing... thanks to the George Bush Lies and Cheney lies fostered off to our people here... i.e. get the duct tape out and tape up your windows and doors against chemical warheads and LOL... the next day no more duct tape is available to purchase... sorry folks, ingnorance is rampant here in good ole US OF A

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