Ron Paul in 2012?

elkston said:

The only thing I agree with Ron Paul about is that we need to stop fighting wars we have no vested interest in. Bring everyone home and lets focus on educating and training Americans for the 21st century. It's just insane that we are STILL in Afghanistan on some vague charter of "Keeping Al-Qaeida From having Safe Havens." Give me a break.

Click to expand...

It's quicksand. We HAD to go in after 9/11, but we didn't have a clear exit strategy and now we are stuck. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

I really wish a truly, truly, liberal President would step up. Or maybe if President Obama is re-elected, he'll be more aggressively left-wing in his second term because he has nothing to lose?

Click to expand...

This scares the hell out of me. I think you are right that a 2nd term Obama could show his true colors and be extremely left wing. The good news/bad news though is that the Congress with be at least middle of the road and more likely slightly right leaning, so an uber liberal Obama is going to have a very difficult time getting anything done. So grid lock to 2016.

Drithius said:

A big problem with independent candidates in the US is that unless pre-election polls have them in the 30-40%+ range, many people, who would have otherwise voted for the independent come election day, vote for one of the two dem/rep's instead. Why? People can be so biased against one of the parties that they'll play a game of "anyone but him/her" and give up on the candidate that interests them. It's moronic and was in effect during the Clinton/Bush Sr./Perot election (Perot still got 13% of the vote).

So, the biggest obstacle to Ron Paul is the modus operandi of not only the partisan political machine but the voting population.

Click to expand...

That's a huge problem. Most people ideologically align with Liberation principles in the US, but few will vote anything other than Dem/Rep.

Oh and DOWN WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE! Every person's vote should count in a popular NATIONAL majority and not just for a state's delegates.

Click to expand...

Yes and no. It definitely sucks being in a state that is so heavily one way or another that it is almost meaningless to vote, but at the same time, if it was a general election, small population states will get zero consideration at all. I think a fair compromise is that all states should be required to award their delegates based on voting precinct , no more winner take all.

blatantninja said:

This scares the hell out of me. I think you are right that a 2nd term Obama could show his true colors and be extremely left wing. The good news/bad news though is that the Congress with be at least middle of the road and more likely slightly right leaning, so an uber liberal Obama is going to have a very difficult time getting anything done. So grid lock to 2016.

Click to expand...

Great, then maybe he can do all those things he claimed he'd do during the election campaign (you know, the things pepole voted him into office to do).

Übereil

Ubereil said:

Great, then maybe he can do all those things he claimed he'd do during the election campaign (you know, the things pepole voted him into office to do).

Übereil

Click to expand...

You give the public far too much credit. I'd estimate at least half the number of people that voted for him have no real idea of his ideology, they voted for one of three reasons:

1) He's black
2) The economy (lost their job or are under employed)
3) They thought McCain had serious anger issues (he does)

Regardless, as I said, he can be as liberal as he wants, he won't get much done with a center to right leaning Congress.

blatantninja said:

Regardless, as I said, he can be as liberal as he wants, he won't get much done with a center to right leaning Congress.

Click to expand...

So it will pretty much be like now. Why do you worry about his... left... leanings then?

Übereil

Whether or not he can actually push his liberal agenda across the finish line, he can still use the gravity of office to pull the entire conversation significantly left.