Ron Paul and the Libertarians

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch:

How to make sense of the Ron Paul revolution? What's behind the improbably successful (so far) presidential campaign of a 72-year-old 10-term Republican congressman from Texas who pines for the gold standard while drawing praise from another relic from the hyperinflationary 1970s, punk-rocker Johnny Rotten?

Now with about 5 percent (and climbing) support in polls of likely Republican voters, Paul set a one-day GOP record by raising $4.3 million on the Internet from 38,000 donors on Nov. 5 -- Guy Fawkes Day, the commemoration of a British anarchist who plotted to blow up Parliament and kill King James I in 1605. Paul's campaign, which is three-quarters of the way to its goal of raising "$12 Million to Win" by Dec. 31, didn't even organize the fundraiser -- an independent-minded supporter did.

When a fierce Republican foe of the wars on drugs and terrorism is able, without really trying, to pull in a record haul of campaign cash on a day dedicated to an attempted regicide, it's clear that a new and potentially transformative force is growing in American politics.

That force is less about Paul than about the movement that has erupted around him -- and the much larger subset of Americans who are increasingly disillusioned with the two major political parties' soft consensus on making government ever more intrusive at all levels, whether it's listening to phone calls without a warrant, imposing fines of half a million dollars for broadcast "obscenities" or jailing grandmothers for buying prescribed marijuana from legal dispensaries.

Paul, who entered Congress in 1976, has been dubbed "Dr. No" by his colleagues because of his consistent nay votes on federal spending, military intervention in Iraq and elsewhere, and virtually all expansions of federal power (he cast one of three GOP votes against the original USA Patriot Act). But his philosophy of principled libertarianism is anything but negative: It's predicated on the fundamental notion that a smaller government allows individuals the freedom to pursue happiness as they see fit.

Given such a live-and-let-live ethos, it's no surprise that at a time when people run screaming from such labels as "liberal" and "conservative," you can hardly turn around in Washington, Hollywood or even Berkeley without running into another self-described libertarian.

The lefty Internet titan Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas penned a widely read manifesto last year pegging the future of his party to the "Libertarian Democrat." The conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg declared this year that he's "much more of a libertarian" lately. Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Tucker Carlson, "South Park" co-creator Matt Stone -- self-described libertarians all. Surely it's a milestone when Drew Carey, the new host of that great national treasure "The Price Is Right," becomes an outspoken advocate of open borders, same-sex marriage, free speech and repealing drug prohibition. As Michael Kinsley, an arch purveyor of conventional wisdom, wrote recently in Time magazine, such people are going to be "an increasingly powerful force in politics."

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I think the chances of Libertarians migrating to the Democrat party are remote. Democrats are complete control freaks, the very opposite of what Libertarians seek from government. Does any Libertarian really want national health care? About the only place where there might be some agreement is a retreat in the war against drug use, where the Libertarians would like to see restrictions abolished.

Libertarians have migrated to the Republicans because of issues like lower taxes and less government intervention. I suspect that is why Paul has stayed with the Republican party. In Texas he has been mostly seen as something of a kook who keeps getting reelected to his district. His anti war views are decidedly not a Texas view. Yet that seems to animate much of the support he is getting in his Presidential campaign.

His supporters are passionate and like to ballot stuff online polls to exaggerate his performance. He has zero chance of winning any primary, no matter how many online polls he may win. He and his supporters seem to have a "Puff the Magic Dragon" approach to the war being waged against us by the Islamist religious bigots. "Hey, dude, if we don't fight back, maybe they will go away." Paul's reasoning on the 9-11 attacks is as ludicrous as that of many of the "truthers" who support him.

Andrew Walden at the American Thinker has more on the Paul supporters.