Well, the Republican National Convention is upon us. Time sure has flown. It seems like 2007 was only yesterday when I first started writing about Ron Paul. Back then I held no expectation at all that Ron Paul would receive the Republican Party nomination and wrote mostly about his message of freedom and how important it was. Times have changed. Ron Paul and his message are more popular than ever.
I have to admit, for about two seconds this year I actually felt that Ron Paul and his supporters could pull it off. I actually thought that the Ron Paul campaign knew what it was doing and the Republicans might actually be forced to run a free thinking, principled individual as their candidate rather than an obvious establishment puppet. I thought the Republican candidate just might be the person that was elected by the grassroots of the party rather than selected by the upper echelon of that party. Of course for that to have happened the Republican Party leadership would’ve had to become honest and even *gasp* followed their own rules.
For a time, even though Ron Paul supposedly lost so many primaries, I thought his supporters were really going to be able to pull off the political surprise of the decade by simply following the rules laid down by the Republican Party and taking over the delegate process. After all, we all know elections can be fixed. It is well documented that electronic voting machines can be hacked. Anyone who doesn’t believe this and still thinks that elections in this country are fair, I suggest you check out Bev Harris’ work at Black Box Voting. I’ll believe that voting is fair when we once again have paper ballots counted at the precincts at the end of the night with the general public invited to watch and independent representatives watching alongside representatives from any political party involved.
That said, I was very disappointed with the Ron Paul campaign that they didn’t follow through with demanding investigations when evidence of vote fraud was discovered in Iowa, New Hampshire and other states. I was disappointed that they didn’t make more of a big deal out of winning a plurality in a number of states. I was very disappointed that they gave up so early in the year when there was still so many primaries to be held. I wanted them to stick it out to the end and cause as much of a stir as possible. I wanted as many people as possible exposed to the message of freedom. I wanted there to be a choice of someone other than the Democrat Mitt Romney. I wanted a true Republican candidate, one who believes in the idea of a constitutional republic with a federal government of limited power.
Well I should have known better. That didn’t happen. Barring a miracle, I doubt very much that that’s going to happen. The problem with Ron Paul is that he’s too damn honest. He’s too damn principled. He couldn’t lie to save his life and he’s not about to make any promises he doesn’t plan on keeping. He doesn’t tell you what you want to hear just to get your vote, he explains to you his position and why freedom is the answer. There’s no way the Republican establishment is going to let him or anyone like him get the nomination. There was never any way that was going to happen. They want someone in there that they can control, not some maverick that wants to empower ordinary people.
