Saturday, February 2, 2008

Explaining the Ron Paul Phenomenon - East Bay Express

The East Bay Express, a local weekly newspaper in the East Bay near San Francisco published an article in their January 30th edition titled "Explaining the Ron Paul Phenomenon". It looks at how Ron Paul has been able to so effectively gather grassroots support of not only Republican voters, but those traditionally from the Democratic and Green parties. The author Matthew Green writes:

Their "Ron Paul Revolution" banners and T-shirts, which compete in visibility with the paraphernalia of the major Democratic contenders, conjure the image of a left-wing messiah, not a 72-year-old pro-life libertarian congressman from South Texas.
Sarah Trafican is a 24 year old graduate student from Berkeley who leads a meet-up group. According to her:
...most people in the Berkeley group are either political independents or former Democrats and Greens, but few republicans...Having a liberal base switch over doesn't surprise me because even though it sounds like the opposite [politically], we really do believe in the same thing - the Constitution
Another co-organizer Ralph Crowder says:
It's amazing how freedom unites people. We can all go back to disagreeing about social issues once the Constitution is taken care of.
My Thoughts
I think this article is a great overview of why liberals have been willing to cross party lines to support Ron Paul. He is the "Champion of the Constitution" and appeals to people who cherish the values protected under the Constitution and oppose unconstitutional military intervention. However, like any other candidate is not without flaws. As I argued in Would a gay Asian-American dare vote Republican?,we have focused too strongly on individual group's issues as opposed to looking at the overall picture.

If we continue to only look out for our own group's special interests, we WILL NOT have have a chance to improve the United States as a whole.

Previous administrations have slowly taken away rights like habeas corpus and intend to continue policies that support the Patriot Act and National ID measures. We, as free citizens of the United States, cannot allow our Constitutional rights to be chipped away. Ron Paul has continually been an advocate for protecting our fundamental rights by voting against the Patriot Act and National ID. This fact, combined with his stance on strong monetary reform is the reason why I have chosen to support Ron Paul.

If you are a Democrat and tired of the rhetoric that the "mainstream" candidates are spouting, you should take a look at Ron Paul. I can tell you from personal experience, that I was hesitant to even consider a Republican candidate, but I am now proud to support him. As the East Bay article shows, I am not alone when it comes to crossing party lines to support a deserving candidate.



Posted by Meaningful_Issues at 3:05 PM

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