Moneybomb, Part III
David Weigel | January 21, 2008, 10:06am
The Ron Paul grassroots have set today aside for the
Free at Last moneybomb. It started at midnight at $1,365,398.11. Nine and a half hours later, the grassroots have donated about $400,000.
At this rate the campaign's going to fall far short of the haul from the last two moneybombs (although still rake in more than a Friday moneybomb by John Edwards fans, which raised around $1 million.) The Ron Paul forums seem
chipper enough:
The headline "100,000 Ron Paul Supporters donate on Martin Luther King Jr Day" is more impressive then saying $x dollars raised. Don't discourage small donations.
If the trend continues, I think it can be pinned on three things.
1. The Newsletters. This won't be the key reason, but it'll be a reason. Anecdotally, from personal contacts and contacts across the web, I know some casual Paul fans have given up supporting the campaign since this scandal. Many will still vote for him, but they're uncomfortable posting signs or giving him cash.
2. The Election Results. We hadn't had any primary by the day of the last moneybomb, and it was still possible for Paul fans to envision surprise 1st and 2nd place primary victories made possible by the cash infusions and the divided field. Nevada raised their spirits, (I ran into some Paul sign-posters yesterday who were giddy about it) but not as high as they were before New Hampshire.
3. The Campaign/Ads. Paul backers have become skeptical that their money will be used effectively. They've seen, and trashed, most of the TV ads run so far, and I've heard that up to $1.8 million was used on those controversial New Hampshire ads. They've bristled at the campaign's response to controversies and the difficulty it has had interjecting into the news cycle.
Steve S. | January 21, 2008, 11:26am | #
With all the shots Reason has taken from the Paul supporters, I must say that I believe the mag has approached the newletter issue with admirable restraint.
It would have been irresponsible to ignore the controversy. And I believe the reporting has been fair (the blogging was obviously rushed in the hours following the TNR story breaking, but that's an inherent flaw in blogs).
Further, I can't help but wonder if the shots from the peanut gallery aren't, at least in some tiny way, professionally motivated. After all, a gig at CATO or Reason has more prestige (and probably pays a lot better, even at Reason!) than one at, say, antiwar.com. And I'm sure CATO and Reason have changed a lot more minds than the fringe Web sites.
I also think the Paul boosters fail to understand that Reason (IMHO) aims to be a rational supporter of, but not a cheerleader for, libertarianism. Self-criticism is a part of the mission.
So keep up the good work, Reasonoids.
As for me, I thought about looking for a spot at the Taktix campground, but maybe I'll just go back to my compound and pull up the gate again.
P.S. Had the Paul campaign been well-managed and had Paul pulled reasonable numbers in New Hampshire, the newsletter dust-up would be but a distant memory - again, just MHO.
hale | January 21, 2008, 12:27pm | #
I would argue that the civil war for which the Ron Paul crack-up has been the catalyst was a historical inevitability from the beginning of the libertarian movement. We're paying the price for our "coalitions" - and I don't just mean membership in the conservative coalition of Ronald Reagan, I mean for the fact that libertarianism itself is a coalition of disparate groups with radically different cultural views - e.g. the two more "mainstream" divisions already trotted out here, but also a variety of others: gold bugs, anarchists, techno-utopians, Objectivists, community secessionists, anti-state socialists, anti-state dominionists, movement anti-communists, conspiracy nuts. There are two ways of looking at this - at any given time we can all be devoted to the rollback of the state at the expense of sentiment, or we can be devoted to our disparate cultural values and inimical to one another. We're currently in the latter mode.
That said, I still think comparison
Reason to
The New Republic is unfair. Yeah,
Reason skipped as fast as they could to distance themselves from Ron Paul's newsletters, and I don't totally blame some of y'all who think that was a craven move and are mad about it. However, let's keep in mind that whatever the cultural distance between one another,
The New Republic represents the other side of a gulf that is both cultural
and political. There may be no other popular journal in America that has been more consistently inimical to libertarians and Libertarians both. Even
National Review, the intellectual leaders of a movement that has in the past written us off as as "useful idiots" (i.e. Stalin's notion) keeps John Derbyshire around and writing.
The New Republic, on the other hand, is a leftist magazine that emits a loathsome odor of social populism and has in the past enthusiastically embraced such ideas as "the Daddy State" and launched ideological assaults on whatever strains of anti-statism remained in the left. I contend that if you are a libertarian of any shade whatsoever,
The New Republic are the Enemy and should be treated as such.
joe | January 21, 2008, 5:08pm | #
While we're talking about looking at the statements in "context," let's remember that we're talking about a substantial number of statements here. That's part of the context in which we should consider the passages, too.
If I make one statement about black people that's a little offensive, maybe I get the benefit of doubt. Maybe I can unpack it and explain that it's not as odious in full context as it might appear at first blush.
But when you have a big pile of such quotes, it doesn't really matter that you can take each one of them in isolation and, by looking at it in just the right way, show that it's not so bad, really. The fact that you have to keep doing that over and over and over demonstrates 1) that you're got a problem, and 2) that you are aware enough of the racist content to make sure you write it in a manner that you can defend it.
Think of a poll that shows a candidate having a 2% lead with a 3% margin of error. Now think of 50 polls that show the same candidate with a 2% lead, each of which has a 3% margin of error. Your confidence that you can draw a meanigful conclusion goes up considerably.
Hey, Jimmy in the back office said something that might-or-might-not be racist about black people. Again. You mention poverty, he gives you a statistic about black people being on welfare. You mention a story you read about a crime, he mentions the difference in crime rates between white and black people. You mentin music, he tells you he can't stand rap music, on goes off on a rant about rappers with big, gold jewelry. You mention that your kid is going to college, he tells you how terrible it is that white people are being persecuted by affirmative action. You mention your car, he tells you about the young black men who customize their cars and then talks about welfare again.
Every single one of his statements can be shown to be perfectly innocent. Regardless, you think Jimmy's daughter is real eager to bring home a black boyfriend?
David Gebhardt | January 21, 2008, 5:36pm | #
Eric Dondero quote:
David, I worked for Ron Paul for 12 years. Last 6 years I served as his Senior Aide in the District.
Rudy Giuliani has more prominent libertarians supporting him than all other GOP Presidential candidates combined. His campaign Chairman is none other than Steve Fobes, a guy who came down to Ron's District and campaigned a whole day for him in his 1996 effort.
Giuliani's also got two Cato guys as advisors, Bill Simon and Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Inst.
Martin Anderson of Hoover is also a Giuliani Economics Advisor.
In fact, Giuliani's campaign advisors read like a who's who of libertarian economists.
To say that Giuliani is not influenced by libertarian thought shows your complete and utter ignorance of the man.
In fact, the NY Times said this of Giuliani in 1999:
"He's not even a real Republican, he's more of an extremist welfare slashing, tax-cutting Ayn Randian."
This was Eric's reply to my question as to whether he is taken seriously around here. Judging by the ass whooping by the other posters, it seems the answer is no.
Thank god. I was beginning to think that after the discussion the other day about the Mormons in Nevada that a reasoned perspective on libertarian thought was forever gone at Reason. Honestly, who were the bigots going on about how the Mormons voting as a block was cult-like and akin to the followers of Jim Jones? Doesn't anyone know a Mormon or have any insight into Mormon culture on this board? Perhaps the reverence for individual rights does not extend that far...
Bill Woolsey | January 22, 2008, 10:59am | #
The notion that the libertarian movement in 1988 to 1996 was extreme right wing is ridiculous. It was small (as always.) With the end of the cold war, Rothbard thought that the "old right" could be recreated. The neoconservatives were looking around for excuses to maintain interventionism. (Starting with a refusal to believe that the Soviet Union had lost the cold war.) Rothbard tried to make an alliance with the existing opponents of the neo-conservatives--the paleoconservatives. The idea was to expand the small libertarian movement of the time into something much, much bigger.
Some of Rothbard's long time libertarian allies followed him in this "paleo-turn." Those that refused this change, usually because they couldn't stomach an alliance with social conservatives, were subject to nasty invective. That was always Rothbard's way.
(Cato had been rejected in the early eighties for moderation. Reason was never in Rothbard's camp.)
What Ron Paul today says about racism (that it is collectivism,) was the dominant approach in the libertarian movement of the late sixties until... well today. I have been active in the libertarian movement for 30 years, located in the south. Very few racist crazies have had any interest in becoming involved in the libertarian movement.
It wasn't until just recently that I learned that part of "paleo" turn was an effort to appeal to NASCAR dads. The redneck strategy. And that it became reaching out to racists too.
When I described the recent Reason article about this to my wife, saying that Rothbard apparently had this crazy strategy of reaching out to rednecks, she said, "like he would know a redneck." Is it really true that Rockwell was born in Boston?
My wife is southern through and through, and a libertarian since the Clark campaign in 1980. To me, the "newsletter" story is about yankee intellectuals writing what they thought would appeal to "NASCAR dads."
In my opinion, belief in negative stereotypes of black poeple are common among southern whites. Though southern whites are very likely to also know black people they like and respect. There are a few crazies who are all focused on "the blacks." Most of us sort of roll our eyes about them and maybe talk about their odd fixation behind their backs. You know, we are southerners.
And Rothbard and friends put words in Paul's mouth that they thought would appeal to "rednecks." Yeah.. a few.. crazies..
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