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Ron Paul Raises $5 Million For Quarter
Ron Paul is largely dismissed as a fringe candidate, but a bunch of people out there obviously like him — his presidential campaign brought in over $5 million last quarter. For anyone who's counting, that's about the same amount as the former frontrunner John McCain took in over the last three months.
It does make one wonder how unhappy a lot of Republican voters must be, if a man running on a form of conservatism that is completely antithetical to the modern GOP can end up raising as much cash as somebody who was once thought of as unbeatable.
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Ron Paul is an "old school" conservative ( roughly equivalent to a classical liberal - like the founding fathers). Perhaps the Republican Party will follow his lead and renounce big-government neo-conservatism.
October 3, 2007 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul is largely dismissed by the media as a fringe candidate. But that doesn't mean that's rational. I mean he may be a little bit crazy sometimes, but then again we're talking about a field where Giuliani is the front runner. For some reason the media (including in this case, gulp, Eric) seem to take Paul less seriously than Huckabee or even Brownback, Hunter and Tancredo. But if you look at fundraising (as here) or Intrade odds, Paul's at the top of the second tier. He's given a 5 or 6% chance of winning (about the same as McCain), vs. 0.1% for "serious" second tier candidates like Brownback or 3% for Huckabee.
October 3, 2007 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul is the only candidate from either party that actually uses the Constitution as his guide. Democrats and Republicans have forgotten about it long ago.
He had to become a Republican (from Libertarian) because the GOP and the Dems have closed the political system.
The corruption of the 2 party political system is robbing America of it's future.
But keep voting for one of them, and see what really changes.
October 3, 2007 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much is from libertarians and how much is from GOP voters who want to end the Iraq War? That's what I'd like to know. Maybe if one of the other 2nd tier candidates started talking about declaring victory and coming home, they'd gain an audience and start to receive some funds as well.
October 3, 2007 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bob, I think you hit the nail on the head.
Most polls show at least 25% of Republicans have soured on Iraq. Not enough to nominate an anti-war candidate, which is probably why Chuck Hagel took a pass.
But enough send a message via Ron Paul.
October 3, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Ron Paul is largely dismissed as a fringe candidate, but a bunch of people out there obviously like him"
-- Right; a bunch of people on the POLITICAL fringe willing to make contributions. Ron Paul is capable of attracting enough support to run a campaign, see it through to the end, earn some popular votes, and recieve ZERO electoral votes.
Ron Paul's expressed positions mark him, fairly or not, as a Libertarian (capable of attracting SOME moderate Democrats) with Republican tendencies. This works to his advantage because the overlap in some policy positions (especially between Libertarians and the GOP) allows him to draw support from both parties. To his detriment, however, his positions on some issues (crime, drugs, foreign policy, the war in Iraq, same-sex marriage) limits him to second-tier status within the Republican Party; meanwhile, the areas where he actually toes the party line (education, trade, stem cells, immigration) put him at odds to one degree or another with both Libertarians and Democrats.
As the major political parties are more polarized than ever, it may be sad to say that Ron Paul's views are too unique to fit comfortably into any of them ... even the Libertarian Party, whose views come closest to matching his. It also may be an indication that the spread of his platform is too unfocused for many voters to get behind.
October 3, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink