A lot of people are frightened of Dr. Ron Paul's possible presidency. They're scared to talk about it, to consider it, or recognize its possibility. Like so many frightened people, they are putting their heads in the sand, and hoping it will all just go away.
Give us a snarky political professional like Guiliani or Clinton, or a nicely coiffed white family man like Romney or Edwards. Give us a nice neoconservative grandpa like Fred Thompson, or a grouchy neoconservative grandpa like McCain. Give us an Obama -- for a change of pace in everything but currently established domestic and foreign policies.
But by golly, don't dare threaten the establishment with Jeffersonian democratic vision and Washingtonian non-interventionism. Don't boldly challenge the NYC/DC axis of politics with sheer constitutionalism. Better yet, don't remind us that the American president is not the commander-in-chief of everybody but a narrowly defined and legally constrained institution that is only equal -- and certainly subject -- to our judicial and legislative bodies.
Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich are the only candidates who seem to understand this. They are also the only candidates who will quickly, if not immediately, end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Wait a sec -- I mean end it peacefully. Ultimately, Iraqis and their supporters around the world will bring down the American occupation -- but they will do so limb by limb, heart by heart, and soul by soul. They will kill thousands of us and themselves before it reaches that inevitable point of non-occupation and honest political independence. Only Paul and two underfunded Democratic contenders offer wisdom to Americans across the nation who are hungry for wisdom, at least in foreign policy.
However -- it is in domestic policy where Ron Paul completes the package. Unlike the democratic longshots, and the candidacy of GuiliClintoRomnObamThomEdwaCain, Ron Paul is about real freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to live, freedom to decide for ourselves. He offers freedom from excessive government mandates, excessive rules and regulations, excessive confiscation of our life and property. In this, Paul is the only real conservative in the group, and yes, perhaps the only radical.
Social planners of all sorts -- some more Marxist in orientation, others more nationalist -- present themselves as the American presidential front runners. The media focuses cameras on their faces, murmurs over their every word, and wonders if America and the world will really like them as Most Supreme Leader of the World.
Ron Paul, humbly and simply, honors the Constitution -- and perhaps this makes him boring to mainstream media. When asked recently how he would use the great power of the executive office, circa 2009, Paul indicated he'd use his power to restrain the natural temptation to abuse that mostly unconstitutional concentration of power. He'd then work to restore a constitutionally established presidency -- in part by revoking the many executive orders to which we have all become inured.
Ron Paul may not excite the mainstream press, establishment policy cheerleaders, big investors in government programs, or the military-industrial complex. But Ron Paul really excites a whole heck of a lot of regular people -- and puts the scare in the rest of them.
Ron's latest odds in the Iowa Straw poll are 8 to 1 -- and the big Republican candidates who represent all-spending, all-war, all-the-time are worried. So worried, many of them aren't even coming to Iowa.
Those who wish to discredit Ron Paul as a viable candidate don't point out his popularity among traditional Republicans, Democrats and Independents. They don't point out that his "Don't Tread on Me" libertarian streak is shared by half the adults in this country, and three quarters of the teenagers. They ignore his grass roots support, the money and the passion that flows steadily into his campaign.
The Republican Party, its Democratic emulators, and mainstream media are living dinosaurs. All refuse to pull their heads out of the sand and face the issues that really touch Americans, and to deliver what Americans really want for themselves, their families and their government. And unlike in previous elections, nobody in American really, truly, cares what mainstream media thinks. It's not that Katie Couric and her ilk aren't nice people. It's just that times have changed.
These dinosaurs -- and the theropods that report the news -- are increasingly irrelevant. I believe that the other contenders for the Presidency will soon begin to adopt Paul's message and attempt to promote his agenda of freedom and peace, or they will become politically extinct. As a peace and freedom-loving American, I can't wait.