{"id":349269,"date":"2010-02-22T10:29:30","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T15:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=77260"},"modified":"2010-02-22T10:29:30","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T15:29:30","slug":"ron-paul-victory-shows-ideological-hardening-ahead-of-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/349269","title":{"rendered":"Ron Paul Victory Shows Ideological Hardening Ahead of 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_77288\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 490px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/paul.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77288 \" title=\"Ron Paul\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/paul-480x320.jpg\" alt=\"Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)\" width=\"480\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) (ZUMApress.com)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The news that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had won the 2010 CPAC presidential  straw poll was leaked early, to soften the blow. Before GOP pollster  Tony Fabrizio had even begun to click through a Powerpoint presentation  that shared the results, reporters were informed of Paul&#8217;s easy, <a id=\"pw3.\" title=\"31 percent victory\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/77216\/ron-paul-wins-2010-cpac-presidential-straw-poll\">31 percent victory<\/a> over nine  Republicans tipped as serious 2012 contenders. Those reporters started  to write stories on Paul&#8217;s surprise win, waiting for the official  announcement &#8212; and an explosion of jeering and booing in the main  ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Sighing with relief, press  aides for the annual conservative conference made sure that the on-site  media had heard that reaction.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27450\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 140px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27450\" title=\"elephant\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/elephant.jpg\" alt=\"Image by: Matt Mahurin\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by: Matt Mahurin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"floatButtons\">\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/digg.com\/tools\/diggthis.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n\tsrc=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/ds\/badge2.js\"\n\tbadgetype=\"square\">\n\t<?php the_permalink(); ?><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\">\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\ntweetmeme_source = \"TWI_news\";\ntweetmeme_service = \"bit.ly\";\n<\/script> <script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left;\"><a name=\"fb_share\" type=\"box_count\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php\">Share<\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> Just as relieved were mainstream  GOP activists and traditional conservative thinkers who were pondering  ways to make the party electable again. &#8220;I think Mitt Romney&#8217;s 22  percent was impressive,&#8221; said Rob Willington, a Massachusetts Republican  strategist who&#8217;d designed GOTV technology for now-Sen. Scott Brown  (R-Mass.). He was reflecting on the poll &#8212; not too significant, he said  &#8212; in Murphy&#8217;s, a bar a few blocks from the hotel, late Saturday.  Romney&#8217;s forces, he said, hadn&#8217;t lifted a finger; Paul&#8217;s had campaigned  for the prize.<\/p>\n<p>In another corner of the bar, conservative author  David Frum, editor of Frum Forum (formerly New Majority), brushed off  the result. &#8220;The Paul people all voted and the others didn&#8217;t,&#8221; said  Frum. &#8220;I&#8217;m hoping it&#8217;s a matter of self-selection.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The  importance of minimizing Paul&#8217;s win united conservative activists like  almost nothing else that came from the three-day conference. Even Brad  Dayspring &#8212; who, as a spokesman for GOP whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.),  counts on Paul for &#8220;no&#8221; votes &#8212; fired off two tweets dismissing the  result. But the 2,395 ballots cast were a CPAC record, up from the 1,757  cast in 2009, when Mitt Romney scored his third conservative win. And  moments after the Paul results were booed, the crowd gave a roaring  ovation to radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck, who rewarded it with a  56-minute lecture on &#8220;progressivism&#8217;s&#8221; war on American values with  historical lessons &#8212; the evil of the Federal Reserve, the  destructiveness of Woodrow Wilson, the folly of &#8220;spreading democracy&#8221; &#8212;  that had featured prominently in Paul&#8217;s speech, too.<\/p>\n<p>For as  little attention as it got &#8212; for the first time in anyone&#8217;s memory, the  news cycle-driving Drudge Report did not even run with the news until the next day &#8212;  Paul&#8217;s victory in an unscientific straw poll revealed plenty about the  state of conservatism. Narrowly, it revealed that Paul&#8217;s quixotic 2008  bid for president created a significant and growing movement of  libertarian-minded teens and twentysomethings whose role in the  conservative coalition will become more clear outside of CPAC. More  broadly, it provided a look at the ideological hardening going on within  the conservative movement as it girds for the 2010 elections. According  to <a id=\"emc2\" title=\"some polls\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/02\/10\/AR2010021000010.html\">some polls<\/a>, the Republican Party is on  track to recover control of Congress and have a voice again in how  America is governed. At CPAC, there was far less attention on how the  party would govern America than on the need to disavow its past, popular  embraces of &#8220;big government&#8221; &#8212; and on the need to embrace a hardcore  libertarian philosophy that views environmentalism and the progressive  movement as fatal threats to freedom.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_77292\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 255px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/reenactor.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77292\" title=\"reenactor\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/reenactor-245x183.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by David Weigel\" width=\"245\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by David Weigel<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Paul&#8217;s youthful crusade of  hopeful libertarians &#8212; its size and its enthusiasm &#8212; was one of the  real surprises of the conference. Paul-inspired or affiliated groups  occupied five booths in the event&#8217;s exhibit hall; the Campaign for  Liberty (the organization he launched after folding his 2008  presidential bid), Young Americans for Liberty (the student group  launched at the same time), Students for Liberty, the Ladies of Liberty  Alliance, and the Future of Freedom Foundation. Libertarian CPAC  attendees packed room after room for lectures by the likes of Fox News  commentator Andrew Napolitano and likely 2012 presidential candidate  Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. They passed out a  documentary about the Paul campaign, &#8220;For Liberty,&#8221; and copies of &#8220;Young  American Revolution,&#8221; a magazine for college students with  contributions ranging from an essay on economics by Rep. Michele  Bachmann (R-Minn.) to a Wake Forest University student&#8217;s tipsheet on how  she organized a blockbuster speech by Paul on her campus.<\/p>\n<p>The  Paul-inspired groups were responsible for one of the pivotal moments of  the three-day conference. On Friday, Students for Liberty president  Alexander McCobin used his speech in the rapid-fire &#8220;Two-Minute  Activist&#8221; line-up to &#8220;commend CPAC for inviting GOProud,&#8221; a gay  Republican group. That got a rise out of Ryan Sobra, an anti-gay  activist who followed McCobin and condemned the conference for inviting  the group. When he was booed, Sobra confusingly attacked Jeff Frazee &#8212;  the head of Young Americans for Liberty. But he was onto something &#8212; it  was the presence of Paul fans, who had crowded into the room for his  upcoming speech, that meant Sobra would get more boos than cheers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I  was thanking my lucky stars that the Ron Paul fans were there,&#8221; said  Jimmy LaSalva, the executive director of GOProud, in a Saturday  interview with TWI. &#8220;The Campaign for Liberty deserves a lot of credit  for setting that tone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul&#8217;s influence surfaced in other ways  that were less helpful for CPAC&#8217;s optics. The <a id=\"dsfc\" title=\"far-right John Birch Society\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/06\/26\/us\/26Land.html\">far-right John Birch Society<\/a>,  of which Paul has been a longtime supporter, made a showy return to the  mainstream conservative fold with a co-sponsorship and booth at CPAC;  because the organization helpfully offered free, spacious merchandise  bags, plenty of CPAC attendees walked around sporting JBS logos. Oath  Keepers, a year-old <a id=\"v4.l\" title=\"coalition of right-wing military veterans\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lvrj.com\/news\/oath-keepers-pledges-to-prevent-dictatorship-in-united-states-64690232.html\">coalition  of right-wing military veterans<\/a>, helped distribute copies of the  Paul documentary &#8212; a favor to Paul activist Michael Moresco, who had  won the organization&#8217;s &#8220;citizen activist of the year&#8221; award for biking  from the Statue of Liberty to Alcatraz Prison. &#8220;It&#8217;s the direction I  think this country&#8217;s headed,&#8221; said Moresco &#8212; from freedom to  imprisonment.<\/p>\n<p>But far from being controversial, Paul&#8217;s critique  of conservatism &#8212; that the GOP lost its way by growing government and  must promise to slash and abolish as much as possible if it wins again  &#8212; was a constant theme. It was present on Saturday when Ann Coulter, a  CPAC star for whom the ballroom filled up an hour before her speech  began, argued that conservatives needed to abolish the IRS and the CIA.  When she ran out of jokes about John Edwards&#8217;s sexuality and Ted  Kennedy&#8217;s drinking, she suggested that the GOP needed a no-to-everything  philosophy similar to Paul&#8217;s. She paused and mugged when that inspired a  chant of &#8220;End the Fed&#8221; &#8212; a Paul-divined slogan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m curious  about this movement over there for eliminating the Fed,&#8221; said Coulter.  &#8220;Yes, End the Fed.&#8221; She answered a Paul fan&#8217;s question by admitting that  &#8220;if Ron Paul supports it and it&#8217;s not about foreign policy, I&#8217;m for  it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On the surface, rhetoric like that contradicted a  much-noticed CPAC theme &#8212; praise for George W. Bush. Grover Norquist,  the president of Americans for Tax Reform, told TWI that Bush boosterism  was a friendly show of support for &#8220;our guy&#8221; after eight years of  drubbing by liberals. And that was it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For seven years he didn&#8217;t  speak at CPAC,&#8221; said Norquist. &#8220;The eighth year we didn&#8217;t want him and  he showed up because CPAC was one of the only places he could speak to  without being booed. Here was a man who deliberately divorced himself  from the movement.&#8221; Medicare Part D, the Department of Homeland  Security, and all the rest of it hadn&#8217;t been forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>Outside  of the conference, some critics accused activists of a kind of nihilism  that wouldn&#8217;t be productive for Republicans. &#8220;CPAC has becoming  increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years,&#8221; <a id=\"pnex\" title=\"grumbled Mike Huckabee\" href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0210\/33250.html\">grumbled Mike Huckabee<\/a> on his Fox  News show, &#8220;one of the reasons I didn\u2019t go this year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Huckabee  would only allow that the Paul win reflected &#8220;the anger and the mood&#8221;  that was fueling Tea Party protests and Democratic losses in some key  elections. In a separate straw poll question on activists&#8217; opinions of  conservative leaders, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) was found to be the most  popular figure in Republican politics&#8211; 71 percent said they liked him.  In the Senate, DeMint has worked to block and filibuster as many  Democratic initiatives as possible while proposing government-slashing,  entitlement-cutting, brazen bills of the kind Paul&#8217;s long discussed. At  CPAC, he said he&#8217;d rather have a Senate with &#8220;30 Marco Rubios&#8221; &#8212; the  Florida candidate for Senate who keynoted the conference &#8212; than &#8220;60  Arlen Specters.&#8221; When TWI asked him how that made sense in the era of  constant filibusters, DeMint said a crisis would lead the way to more  pure policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the short term, we can&#8217;t expect to get any of  our ideas through,&#8221; DeMint told TWI. &#8220;But at some point, we&#8217;re going to  be forced to do something. It&#8217;s not going to be so much a matter of  political philosophy if we can&#8217;t pay our debts and we&#8217;re facing default.  At that point I think you&#8217;re going to see even liberals realize we  don&#8217;t have any choice. We just need to be in a position where we have  enough conservatives to come up with some functional policies to get us  out of this.&#8221; DeMint shook his head. &#8220;I hope it won&#8217;t take a complete  breakdown for us to come together.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul wasn&#8217;t around to enjoy  his triumph. On Saturday morning, he returned to his east Texas district  to debate three opponents in his early March Republican primary. But  before leaving on Friday night, he reflected on how and why his constant  refrain for fiscal austerity and abolishing most 20th century  government expansion had become Republican dogma.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I went  back to Congress in 1996, Tom DeLay came out to a function in my  district,&#8221; Paul told TWI. &#8220;He came out of it and he said, &#8216;You know  what? Ron said that 20 years ago! Now it&#8217;s the same message and 20 more  years.&#8217;&#8221; Paul turned and stopped to talk with a gushing middle-aged fan,  then turned back to TWI.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And with more credibility on the  economics!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) (ZUMApress.com) The news that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had won the 2010 CPAC presidential straw poll was leaked early, to soften the blow. Before GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio had even begun to click through a Powerpoint presentation that shared the results, reporters were informed of Paul&#8217;s easy, 31 percent victory over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}