Picture of the Day, Part Two: Ron Paul

Tee-hee:



That picture made me giggle. :)

And while we're on the subject of Ron Paul, I'd like to point you over to Right Wing News, where John Hawkins is explaining why people don't like Ron Paul (I'm not going to post the entire thing, just my favorite little nuggets):

It's no secret that I don't care much for Ron Paul, but after reading some of the hurt and angry responses from Ron Paul fans to his first place finish in the Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select Their Least Favorite People On The Right (2007 Edition) poll, I thought it might be worth taking the time to explain to them why Paul is so unpopular with mainstream conservatives.

In an effort to be polite, I am not going to be snarky about it, but I should forewarn Paul's fans and, for that matter, any "Big L" Libertarians who may be reading, that they are probably not going to like what they read. I'm not trying to be insulting, but without a certain amount of bluntness, it's impossible to get some of these points across.

First of all, a lot of Republicans are strongly pro-war and the fact that Ron Paul is not only anti-war, but has adopted some of the more obnoxious and inflammatory rhetoric of the Left about the war is extremely grating. According to Paul, Iraq is a war for oil and empire, engineered by neocons, and in Paul's book, we deserved to be attacked on 9/11.

When you aim that sort of rhetoric at people who strongly support the war and feel that it's justified, moral, and in America's best interests, it's guaranteed to generate a huge wave of hostility. Additionally, Paul's thoughtless, "we must leave immediately, regardless of the consequences," position on Iraq comes across as poorly thought out. Even if you thought that the war was a bad idea and opposed it from day one, the idea that we can simply extricate ourselves from Iraq immediately because it's unpleasant, with no consequences, is the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a 16 year old at an anti-war rally, not something you expect from a candidate for President. Even Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama, all of whom have spent months trying to convince their base that they're the most anti-war of all the top tier candidates, are saying we may be in Iraq for years to come.

...

Going beyond that, Ron Paul's support for the North American Union conspiracy and his winks and nods to the 9/11 truther crowd appall many conservatives. After spending much of the last six years ripping on liberals for tolerating wild eyed conspiracy theorists, it's embarrassing to many conservatives to have someone on our side, running for President, who's encouraging people on the Right to behave in the same fashion.

This leads us to the last big problem that Ron Paul has: despite the fact that Ron Paul is polling at somewhere between 2%-4% nationally, he has, for whatever reason, more obnoxious supporters backing him than all the other candidates combined. If you write a column or a post knocking John McCain, Mitt Romney, or Rudy Giuliani, you'll certainly have some people disagreeing with you, some of them strongly. If you knock Ron Paul, you'll often have hordes of social misfits making obnoxious comments, spamming your polls, touting conspiracy theories, insulting conservatives in general, and doing everything possible to make nuisances of themselves.

I'm not sure there's much I can add to what John wrote. As usual, he pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Frankly, I've always just found Ron Paul annoying. I mean, his positions are annoying enough, but by God, what is with the Ron Paul supporters? They reacted so badly to a post I wrote about Ron Paul in Jacksonville, that I had to delete comments and threaten to enable commenting restrictions. It's apalling, embarassing, and you know what? I'll say it again, annoying that we've got a truther nutjob running for President as a Republican. It's annoying to see Ron Paul wanting to get rid of the CIA and the Patriot Act. His conspiracy theories are annoying. And the "we must leave Iraq NOW, no matter the consequences!" viewpoint is annoying and potentially dangerous. He fits in better at DailyKos than he does with conservatives.

I say he's annoying over and over again because honestly, that's what he is. He's annoying. He's not a viable candidate (let's be honest, folks, he ain't goin' nowhere), he's just this guy hanging around the election spouting out crazy conspiracy theories and rhetoric. I mean, he has his positives (George Bush could take some lessons from Ron Paul on spending, that's for sure), but Ron Paul has so many negatives that it makes it difficult for people who aren't diehard Ron Paul supporters to find the positives in there, which will make it more than a little difficult for him to gain any new supporters.

When I think of Ron Paul, the image I get is of an annoying little housefly buzzing around your head. You know he's not going to sting you or anything, but the little fly is just bugging the crap out of you. You swat at it and swat at it, but it just won't go away. I think of Ron Paul and think of him as this little annoying housefly buzzing around the race for the candidacy that most people wish would just go away.

Yes, I'm fully aware of the uproar from the Ron Paul supporters I'll probably get from this post. Go right on ahead -- bring on the spammers. I'm still giggling at that picture.