• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

North Carolina Tea Party

North Carolina's Home For Liberty

  • Home
  • Headlines
  • Opinion
  • About us
  • Contact Us

The Great Paul Conspiracy

January 23, 2012 by NC Tea Party Staff 4 Comments

I saw this posted on a Tea Party Facebook group I frequent:

“Libertarian Ron Paul was unable to construct his own “nest” in the Libertarian Party & has instead invaded the Republican Party to “incubate” and legitimize his candidacy. He is continuing this process by encouraging his supporters to infiltrate the Republican party at the local level so they can skew the delegate count in Paul’s favor at this summer’s convention. Such deceptive “end justifies the means” tactics are very reminiscent of radicals on the left. Conservatives, which Ron Paul claims to be, have no history of engaging in such underhanded tactics. In this regard, “non leftist Leftist” Ron Paul reveals himself as someone much closer to Obama than to Ronald Reagan.”

A couple of things about this.

1.) Rep. Ron Paul was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1976. He was the first Republican ever elected to represent his district. Since then, he has been re-elected to Congress, as a Republican, 11 times. True, he left the party in 1988 for a brief period of time. Nevertheless, he’s been a Republican far longer than he was ever a Libertarian. He no more “invaded” the GOP than did Strom Thurmond or Ronald Reagan, both of whom spent time as Democrats before switching their voter registration to Republican.

2.) Are we seriously suggesting that Paul encouraging his supporters to join the Republican Party and participate in the process as delegates and party officers is a bad thing? Considering that a large percentage of Paul’s supporters are college age or in their early 20s, I would think that Republicans would be DELIGHTED that SOMEONE was reaching out to young people and turning them Republican. Certainly no other Republican running for President can say the same thing. To castigate Paul for bringing in new blood is essentially to say that you don’t want new people coming into the Party, and thus don’t want the Party to have a future beyond the next 8 – 10 years. How’s that rational?

3.) Following the rules as written to become a Republican delegate is not “deceptive.” Suggesting otherwise is silly, irrational, and barely worthy of discussion. If don’t support Paul and your candidate isn’t training HIS supporters on how the delegate-selection process works, that doesn’t mean Paul is dishonest, it simply means your candidate is incompetent. If you don’t like the way the delegate process works, elect someone to high party office who will change it for you.

Also, saying that there’s no history in the GOP of supporters of this or that candidate learning the rules and following them to become delegates shows a stark ignorance of history. Scores of Democrats in Southern states changed their voter registration to Republican and entered the Party en masse during the 1960s and 1970s. They were primarily responsible for the success of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns and the early success of Pat Robertson’s 1988 presidential campaign.

If folks want to debate the merits of Paul’s policy proposals, that’s all well and good. The GOP is a big party and there is and should be room for debate about what the Party should stand for and which policies are in our national interest.

Singling out one candidate for scorn because his supporters have taken the time to join the party, learn its rules, and participate in the nomination process isn’t just petty and ignorant, it’s short-sighted and self-destructive. The last time I checked, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in North Carolina by a pretty hefty margin. Trying to drive out of the Party the one candidate who’s proven effective at recruiting scores of young, new Republicans is a quick ticket to political irrelevance.

Byline – Adam Love is the NC State Coordinator for Campaign for Liberty. The mission of Campaign for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.

Filed Under: Archives

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. mike morgan says

    February 5, 2012 at 2:09 am

    i agree. lets see what happens.

    teach the kids whats important

    Reply
  2. Simon Zur says

    January 24, 2012 at 2:38 pm

    Excellent reasoning. I think the time has come to be done with the old ways, and to embrace the new. Actually, what Ron Paul represents is paleoconservatism. This, of course, has the neoconservative socialist wing of the party in an uproar. They know that this will eventually lead to the destruction of their power in the party. they don’t want to lose that power because they desperately want to socialize the US and the world. They like having a two party system, that is really a one party system with two factions-Democrats and Republicans, making all of the policy decisions toward those ends. They don’t want America to have a real choice.

    Reply
  3. Nicole Revels says

    January 24, 2012 at 2:21 pm

    Great job articulating these points! Awesome article… Sharing.

    Reply
  4. Chuck Suter says

    January 24, 2012 at 11:20 am

    Great work Adam, hope people wake up to the fact that the republican party needs us Ron Paul supporters (as Jim DeMint has said) if we are going to win elections going forward!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Archives

  • January 2021
  • October 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2015
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in