The Case of Ron Paul

At the moment it appears Mr. Paul might win Iowa, Santorum notwithstanding. I like most Americans only “know” Mr. Paul from his two most recent Don Quixote-esque campaigns. Commentators regularly point out that the electorate has moved so much closer to Paul this election cycle where he has raised millions and is running a well-funded 50-state campaign which draws hordes of college kids anxious to be part of something special and groundbreaking.

Paul regularly points out the cost of America’s military commitment, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Japan, Korea and Germany. He is courageous enough to point up the folly of military adventurism. That is so rare on the right one has to take notice, even as you wince at the isolationist retreat in his posture especially vis-à-vis the nuclear confrontation in Iraq. He makes a sane case for excessive Government intervention in our lives, something most conservatives cannot comprehend. Score another point worthy of consideration.  No less a liberal scorecard then the Washington Post gave Paul it’s Pinocchio Test, something it does to fact check the candidates’ positions against their voting records, and pronounced Paul at least true to his rhetoric: “Paul has distinguished himself as the most consistent candidate in the GOP field. He votes according to his principles almost 100 percent of the time, establishing a reputation as an uncompromising representative. In short, voters know exactly what to expect from him -- which should make it easy to decide whether to vote for him.”

Well maybe that’s a bit simplistic. I read recently that Paul once sat out a race for the Republican nomination because a candidate he deeply admired had decided to run. That candidate was Pat Buchannan. That got me thinking.

Much has been made lately of the allegedly anti-gay, racist, anti-Semitic, newsletters which appeared under Paul’s name. The candidate has stiff-armed the press on the subject, and the relentlessly short main stream attention spans have largely backed off transfixed as they are by the horse race. The seminal article on the newsletters (with loads of links directly to the actual texts) can be found in the New Republic.

http://www.tnr.com/print/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendiary-newsletters-exclusive

Paul would have America believe that he did not write the lengthy and repeatedly racist paranoid rants, but the record is troubling and suggests that he is plainly lying about the authorship of the vile rhetoric. If Iowa gives this nut the nod for Republican nominee then the Caucuses there have no creditability.

A few basic facts… There are series of newsletters all published under Paul’s name, and frequently with “Copyright Ron Paul Associates” and Paul’s picture on the masthead. TNR turned up dozens of newsletters. They start as early as 1978 with wild conspiracy theories about the Panama Canal and the Trilateral Commission and run through 1996.

There is always a heavy dose of racial politics, which tends to run to the extraordinarily theories, so popular with survivalists and right wing militias, that whites under attack from hordes of minorities, gays, and immigrants. My favorite Jimmy the Greek style quote is, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." But there is no sunny ignorance here. The newsletter engages in hate speech again and again and for a news media that was obsessed with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the silence is deafening though I doubt that will continue if Paul wins Iowa. 

Under Paul’s name, claims are made that Martin Luther King “beat his paramours” and “seduced underage girls and boys”. As Taylor Branch’s epic collection of King Biographies makes clear, King had extra-marital relations. To acknowledge that is merely to acknowledge the humanity and imperfection of the man. Making King out to be a saint serves no useful purpose I can see. As a man he was extraordinary enough. But these accusations, made into whole cloth, are spun from the racist imagination of a paranoid and hateful bigot. David Duke, The KKK leader who ran for senate in Louisiana found good company with the author of these newsletters. After Duke lost the race, although coming frightfully close, The Ron Paul Survival Report carried the following:  “Duke’s platform called for tax cuts, no quotas, no affirmative action, no welfare, and no busing... To many voters, this seems like just plain good sense…” Returning the favor Duke presents a vociferous defense of Ron Paul, as well as an attack on the Anti-Defamation League, on his website.

Paul’s fear of gays would put the homosexual sex obsessed Santorum to shame. According to TNR, “The September 1994 issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report states that ‘those who don’t commit sodomy, who don’t get blood a transfusion, and who don’t swap needles, are virtually assured of not getting AIDS unless they are deliberately infected by a malicious gay.’” Elsewhere Paul’s copyrighted newsletter suggests gays may be trying to poison blood supply in San Francisco and another post urges the readers to “bring back the closet” noting that “society [was]far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities." How quaintly conservative.

Paul makes the case the he had no role in writing the Klan friendly diatribes, but the record does not bear this out. In 1996 when questioned by a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, Paul was asked about a newsletter rant against Barbara Jordan, a congresswoman with an epic record in the women’s and civil rights struggle. Paul called the late Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and an "empress without clothes." After being confronted about the newsletter posts by a local Congressman, Lefty Morris, Paul told the Chronicle, "The causes she so strongly advocated were for more and more government, more and more regulations and more and more taxes.  My cause has been almost exactly the opposite, and I believe her positions to have been fundamentally wrong.  I've fought for less and less intrusive government, fewer regulations and lower taxes." He certainly did not seem to disavow his role in the newsletters then. I suppose running as Congressman in Texas there may have been some merit in letting a certain part of the electorate believe you were standing up to what they perceived to be an uppity black woman.

In another article in 1996 a paper called the Victoria advocate questioned Paul’s press secretary, Michael Sullivan. Asked about the quote on “fleet footed black teenagers” Sullivan said Paul’s words were of course, “taken out of context” and his comments about black males being fleet-footed and criminal were "sarcastic and aimed at the Washington, D.C. police force". He went on to talk about Paul's "writing style". Sullivan went on to say that the newsletters were a source of extra income for Dr. Paul. All of this seems a bit far from Paul’s comments to CNN last week that “he read the newsletters only ‘on occasion’ and ‘did not write them’” USA Today reports Paul made $900,000 from the newsletters in 1993 alone.

And we finish with the right wing paranoia. Paul as previously noted stood up to Newt to defend the Bill of Rights. The newsletter offers advice to advice to antigovernment militia members which should be quite helpful in the event Newt wins out: “Keep the group size down…Keep quiet and you’re harder to find…Leave no clues…Avoid the phone as much as possible” and finally and best “Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

That Paul has gotten is far is a testament to the media soaked drivel that passes for republican election politics in 2011. I saw CNN analyst Ron Brownstein make the case that the Republican election cycle is being driven so much by TV and the debates that the candidates have not been able to make connections to voters that would help them withstand the pressures of the campaign. He went on to suggest that this and the complete dissatisfaction with Romney by conservatives is the reason every candidate except Romney has risen, and only Santorum who just got here has yet to fall. That seems about right.

But if this is true the rise of Paul with the highly questionable and largely unreported background—for two election cycles no less—shows the absolute failure of the system and in my view the debilitating sickness that money brings to the process. He has achieved a remarkable place in the polls, received praise from media savvy icons like Jon Stewart, and yet he has an extensive record of despicable rhetoric. I doubt there is much danger that Paul will get much further than Iowa. If he were to be the victor in Iowa the press will dredge this stuff up and his opponents will rip him apart. Paul’s path is still instructive for good and bad. Much like the Koch brother’s candidate Cain, Paul is the Manchurian candidate for the moneyed class. In running and failing they teach lessons for candidate’s slightly more clever to follow. Given how little attention was paid to Cain’s fund raising and Paul’s past, what might we expect in 2016?