Ron Paul Visit
The Ron Paul crowd was significant for a couple of reasons. Yes, it was dwarfed by the Clinton visit the day before that had roughly three times as many people.
But the Ron Paul crowd certainly dwarfs any other Republican event this year in El Paso. The Tea Party Rally, which is usually the Republicans biggest event, was a total flop. Ron Paul has no chance of winning the Republican nomination. But yet he still packed the room with enthusiastic supporters.
Ron Paul isn't the El Paso establishment Republican's favored candidate. But a group of excited, passionate, and organized people, who remind me very much of Obama supporters 4 years ago, not only got Ron Paul to come to town, but they did it without the help of the establishment GOP. And its a crowd that is much larger than what the Republicans were able to drum up all year.
Not a good move on his part, but he's not viable anyway.
The energy of the Ron Paul supporters is something that the establishment Republicans should try to capture. It won't pay off in this election, but down the road it could really pay off. They are young, most of your establishment Republicans aren't. They are organized, most of your establishment Republicans aren't. They are social media guru's, and most of the establishment Republicans think Twitter is 60's slang for a woman's naughty parts.
These are the people that know how to grow a movement organically. They've had to because most media don't take them seriously and don't provide coverage. How do you know that is true, just take a look at how little media showed up to the event last night.
I've seen the infancy of the Ron Paul movement in El Paso. It was just a handful of people and they met at an eastside coffee shop.
Now they fill the auditorium at UTEP and had Ron Paul show up. Make no mistake, that is significant.
How can you not admire that passion?
That being said, Ron Paul isn't a viable candidate for the Republican nomination. They don't like to hear that and say its a media conspiracy when people say that, but the media don't appear interested enough in Ron Paul to mount a vast, far reaching conspiracy against him. Do the election math, this thing is basically over.
Yesterday Newt Gingrich announced he was getting out of the race. Hell, after Santorum quit, I forgot Gingrich was still in the race and most people have forgotten Ron Paul is technically still in the race. He'll take it all the way to the convention. His supporters can influence the national platform, but Ron Paul isn't going to be on the ticket. Top or bottom.
But the energy of his supporters isn't something that just goes away. The challenge for the Republicans is how do they harness it? They better come up with a game plan soon, otherwise the "Libertarian Wing" of the Republican Party is about to get much stronger...
I hope your facts are more accurate than your statement asserting that I don't people their vote didn't matter. I never said that.
ReplyDeleteNo Jaime, you did not say such explicitly. But what can be implied from reading your article is that Romney has sealed the deal on obtaining the necessary delegate count needed to get the Republican Nomination. He hasn't, and thus Texas matters. The people of El Paso still have their votes, and as long as they have not partaken in any other party's primary, they can partake in the Republican Primary, and vote for Ron Paul. All future primaries, ours the 29th of May, and the fight for delegates continues. Mitt Romney is a shoe in if and only if the people decide to let others choose their leaders for them. It is THAT message which I felt was lost in your article.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, I must thank you for your attention in this affair. Any press is good press, and for that I thank you.
It was not a good move for Tilghman because the Democratic base already have doubts as to his loyalty to the values of the Democratic Party. He has been a key note speaker at Tea Party events and run as an independent previously. He sounds like a Republican and showing up, in the middle of the Democratic Primary, to court Republican voters at a Republican event, is not a smart move.
ReplyDeleteIsabel, you have got to be kidding me right? "I consider it an affront to compare us to Obama supporters who knew nothing of the platform and voted for someone because of his "beautiful rhetoric" that turned into nothing more than lies and presidential order after presidential order destroying the fiber of our constitutional rights."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all it was meant as a compliment. Second of all, people don't read my blog because I write what they want to hear, they read it because I call it like I see it. Period.
The idea that we Obama supporters, I was and am one of them, only voted for him because of beautiful rhetoric is the insult. That is ridiculous. I know my party values and advocate for them regularly. You don't have anything other than anecdotal observations to even come to that conclusion in the first place.
This is the problem with your post, it capsulizes the problem many people have with Ron Paul supporters. The idea that if we don't agree with Ron Paul, that we are somehow intellectually inferior. That the ONLY possible reason we have for not supporting Ron Paul is because we just don't know him or his politics.
Sorry, thats not the case and you guys would do well to recognize that fact. It might even help you all strategize on how to win more supporters, as opposed to displaying the very elitism that you all are opposed to.