Here Comes Iowa

I’m left with more than a little despair these days. Ron Paul’s newsletters and the implications of those pamphlets, including the enormous amount of money Paul made publishing them, are more damning than I at first believed. The revelations presented not just by Paul’s political opponents, but by his natural allies in the libertarian camp, make supporting the Texas congressman in the next general election more difficult than ever.

I still hope that Paul wins Iowa. The race is, even this late in the game, Romney’s to lose and as Will Wilkinson notes, “If Mr Romney sweeps the early states, the most ridiculously enjoyable primary season in recent memory will turn dreadfully dull.”

More to the point, if Paul is shoved out of the race too soon the many important ideas he represents will vanish from debate and instead of a possible general election that shifts the conversation about the drug war and Iran to the left and toward non-interventionism, we’ll have a national security debate between the increasingly hawkish Romney and Obama. The pissing contest will be between two men trying to out-tough and out-serious one another on foreign affairs.

Can I support Paul in the general on the off, off chance that he beats Romney? Tod Kelly’s post sums up why it’s going to be a tough sell.

More evidence of the wackiness and racism of Ron Paul’s newsletters spanning several decades shakes my confidence in the congressman badly, regardless of whether or not he wrote them. He says he didn’t write them, that he didn’t read them at the time, and that he disavows them now. Here he is walking out of a CNN interview where questions of the newsletters were raised:

Ron Paul is leading in Iowa. I don’t think his surge will drop off, if only because the timing is right. Gingrich’s star rose too soon. Paul’s is rising just in time for the Iowa Caucuses next month, right after the holiday respite from all things politics.

As I was saying, I am overcome by a sense of despair. There is no great progressive hope. Gary Johnson, the only anti-war candidate with no baggage, is running for the Libertarian nomination. I’m seriously considering voting Johnson as a protest vote – a protest that would be as much a vote against Obama’s foreign policy and the hideousness of the GOP as it would be a vote against Rockwell and Rothbard’s foolish, despicable experiment in race-baiting. What a gross disservice to their cause that was. What a fool Ron Paul was to go along with it, or to turn a blind eye.

On domestic issues, Johnson is more closely aligned with my own beliefs though I am certainly more of a socialist than him when it comes to healthcare. Indeed, voting my anti-war beliefs this time around may vote actively against my own self-interest when it comes to issues of domestic affairs. Priorities are a bitch.