Talk Elections

I am amongst those who suspect Paul's support is well overstated by his internet following. Nevertheless I find him to be a very interesting candidate from the perspective of his diverse backing.

In terms of previous presidential voting patterns, how will Paul's support break down? One would think that the most fertile ground would be those who have voted Libertarian and Constitution, but based on 2004 results, this would only limit him to a universe of about 560K people (not adjusting for deaths, and of course the question of how many of these people would be registered and interested in voting for him in a GOP primary). If we broaden it a tad based on 2000 results, including Buchanan supporters, this group would be closer to 800-900K, but again, now 7+ years have passed and you'd lose more people (esp. with Tancredo and Hunter). Could we throw in some Naderites? OK, a few very anti-establishment, anti-Republicrat global corporate forces, but I don't think he'd get many Nader voters (with Kucinich, Gravel and other Democrats in the running).

For him to make a dent, he'll have to pull significantly from the Bush, Kerry or Did not vote constituencies.

Given how strongly he has condemned the Bush administration, can he gain many Bush voters? This is such a big universe that we can't typecast them easily, but it will be tricky for Paul. The proverbial "Paleocons" would seem to be drawn to him, and many of them voted for Bush as the lesser of two evils. Of course, there are some people who were enthusiastic about Bush in 2000, somewhat comfortable voting for him in 2004 and have since become very disappointed with the Iraq War and the second term in general. There is another core group of voters that don't follow politics much and base their decision on the right to bear arms and other fundamental issues that relate to govt restrictions (IRS powers, farming, land use, etc.) that checked the box for Bush and would find Paul attractive.

As far as Kerry voters, again, the problem for him is that there is such a big field of Democrats to choose from. Also, the added risk to Paul is that many will not be registered to vote in a GOP primary. However, I would concede that there are many Kerry voters who could be drawn to him. The first group would tend to be younger voters, socially very liberal but not dependent on social benefits, and strongly against gun controls and Fed govt bureaucracy who commonly reside in Western and New England states. The second are the generally lifelong republicans who considered Bush to be grossly incompetent and wasteful, including a few Paleocons.

The did not vote category is the hardest of all to put a finger on. There are those who are between 18-21 who were simply ineligible. Add a few others in their 20s who never got around to registering last time. To the extent Paul is doing well among the very young, he could be drawing heavily here. The "I don't vote, they're all crooks anyway" segment is very difficult to size up and politically unreliable by definition.

Of course this is all very oversimplified given how complex the voting decision is, but I would be very interested to see how Ron Paul's support turns out.

Libertarians, old school Conservatives, and Moderate Republicans opposed to the War in Iraq.

Software engineers.

it won't.

a handful of Democrats

I believe you are thinking of Bush.

It looks like he's the only anti-war Republican, so he will get most of those votes I think. Those people have to make up at least 10% of the party I would think.

Plus, the libertarian vote and old-school conservatives, the George Wills and Pat Buchanans if not those people themselves, which is probably worth a couple points.

Keep in mind though the Republicans who are opposed to the war are more than likely moderate Republicans, who don't take part in Primaries like their conservative counterparts do.

It will interesting to see how much support he ends up with. As more and more Republicans sour on the war - Paul may actually pick up a noticable amount of support. Plus - if he can get his message out on the limited budget he has (which is a big if), Paul will be able to pick up support from some old school (real) Republicans. His libertarian support will be solid - but small. A good performance by Paul could help move the process along of removing the hijackers from power in the Republican Party.

I wonder if he will overperform in caucuses?  Just a thought.

I remember watching a show following the last debate, I think it was Tucker Carlson's, where he compared the fiscal discipline of I think Tommy Thompson and what programs he would cut when asked to what Paul said afterwards. Thompson named some obscure program that Carlson had never heard of and Paul named whole departments (Education, Homeland Security, and another I can't remember). Carlson commented that Republicans circa mid-90s used to sound like Paul, but now the whole "less spending" thing seems to have been thrown out the window pretty much.

I don't know if the fiscal discipline folks in the Republican Party though really command much of an audience, i.e. small government to most Republicans means spend as much as you want but we want lower taxes.

The current base of the Republican Party is such an off the wall mix of odd birds. Paul adds interest to the GOP race in that it will give us a chance to see in clearer terms what the GOP base really is. Rudy also adds a different dimension to that race. At the end of this race, I suspect we will have it confirmed that the social conservatives (though I don't like to call them that) and those with very short term business interests really do run the GOP and that Ron Paul and fiscal conservatism don't have a place in the GOP any longer. But that isn't going to stop me from wishing him well as he tries to reclaim a piece of the GOP.

The pro-war Southern conservatives won't vote for him.  They'll desert him more than Guiliani.  Libertarians will obviously vote for him, as will libertarian-leaning antiwar conservatives.

He'd lose in a landslide.

I think that's pretty obvious, but the question is how much support he will get. I think that consring that he only has 2%, he will probably overperform, especially in NH.

I think that happens nowadays.  You could have said the same of Howard Dean.  I think until the world wide web either supplants, or becomes as ubiquitous as, the old-fashioned telephone device, such observations may be made.  I'd even be willing to venture the hypothesis that if you had the data to peruse, you'd find that in the early days of telephone service there would have been candidates whose popularity was overstated by those that only depended upon telephone conversations to determine a candidate's following.  Not sure that applies to the rise of television and printed media, though, because unlike telephone and internet, they are one-way communication devices.  Certainly disequilibrium phenomena are hardest to pin down, so don't use the internet to figure out who's on top till a generation or so has passed.

But I did notice that Paul got much applause at the debate.  I assume it comes from unaffiliated voters.  In states with open or modified open primaries, that effect should not be discounted.  It may also come from old-school rightists who haven't jumped on the imperialistic bandwagon.  That said, I think he's too idealistic to have rather broad appeal.  Just as Kucinich is too idealistic to have rather broad appeal.  I do respect ther respective purisms, but I also recognize that idealism, whether it manifests itself as Rightist perfect policy or Leftist perfect policy is usually disastrous.  I always hate to admit this, since I'm so down on the triangulators and pragmatists, but in fact even I see the folly in rallying behind such unyielding idealism, whether of Kucinich's variety or Paul's.

You never know about these things, though.  He could be drafted by one of the smaller parties to the right of the GOP, particular the anti-war conservatives and arch-federalists.  We hear so much about Democrats and Republicans all the time.  Who does the David/JohnDibble/MaC crowd like for their candidate?  Is Paul a possibility?  Would he accept such an invitation?  If so, would the republicans split?  Would they lose?  Would the republicans then spin it the way Bush41 did when he lost, claiming it was all Perot's fault, and like the algore folks did when they refused to admit algore defeated algore?  All these are intriguing questions.  Somebody with a real crystal ball could make a killing in the stock market.  Too bad we're so mean to the arabs.  I hear they have genies, and genies can predict the future.  Can't they?  Gotta get me one of those.

HAHA!  Do you need the picture of Giuliani as a cross dresser or do I need to need to post it? 

Socially conservative far outweighs being a hawk.