Ron Paul Revolution

The more I think about it, the more excited I get about Ron Paul's stunning fundraising accomplishment. Daniel Larison weighs in on the Paul threat to the GOP mandarins:

Despite the fact that he has explicitly and repeatedly ruled out an independent run, the fear of his impact on the general election is real enough. Dismissing and insulting Paul’s supporters are the defensive responses of a crumbling, dying party, as if to say, “Yes, most Americans may despise us and everything we have done, but at least we’re not a bunch of kooks who talk about the Constitution!” If things were like they were in 2002 and the GOP was still dominant, this arrogant dismissal of a small but noticeable group of Republican and independent voters might make more sense, but under the present circumstances it is baffling why anyone interested in GOP victory next year would go out of their way to insult and denigrate a relatively small but extremely active segment of the electorate. This response is premised on the assumption that Ron Paul has little Republican backing, but until a couple months ago no one thought Huckabee had that much backing, either.

Ross likes Paul's potential to be a truly transformative politician:

First, his remarkable fundraising success is good news for extremists everywhere. I don’t mean to use “extremist” pejoratively; I just mean that the entire apparatus of national politics in this country, from how the parties are organized to how the media covers election, has evolved (or been intelligently-designed, perhaps) to exclude anyone who deviates too far from what's understood in Washington as the political mainstream. When “extreme” figures manage to break through and succeed in this sytem, it’s usually because they aren’t really that extreme at all – see Newt Gingrich, for instance, a center-right futurist whom the press painted (with an assist from his own undisciplined mouth) as a fascist nutjob, or Howard Dean, a moderate liberal who was cast as the second coming of George McGovern because he opposed the Iraq War and acted, well, angry. Whereas Ron Paul actually is an extremist, insofar as he holds positions that are way, way outside the Beltway mainstream. And his (admittedly limited) successes hint at an internet-enabled future in which, for good or ill, a hundred ideologically-diverse flowers can bloom - or at least run ads in New Hampshire.

Glenn Greenwald says that everybody could find something about Paul's worldview to object to, and object to strongly. But the great thing about Paul (says Greenwald) is that he's got a thoughtful, coherent worldview, and that he doesn't pander. Moreover, if you really want a change candidate this year, Obama's not your man: Ron Paul is. He sees parallels between Paul's rise today and Howard Dean's four years ago:

Additionally, the establishment's reaction to both candidacies is similar. Even though they both were espousing ideas more substantive and thoughtful on vital issues than any other candidates, both of them were depicted as radical, fringe losers not to be taken seriously. This, despite the fact that they are both eminently rational medical doctors repeatedly re-elected by the people who know them best -- their constituents. But the Beltway political and media elite protect their prerogatives by demonizing anyone who challenges them as an unserious loser, and that is how they depicted Dean (until he joined them) and how they now depict Paul.

I don't want to push the Dean/Paul analogy too far. There are obviously very major differences between them and what fueled each of their candidacies. But the hallmark of both was that they tapped into the widespread and intense scorn for the rancid establishment governing the Beltway, and anything that does so is something to be cheered.

Greenwald says the Ron Paul video below is kind of cheesy toward the end, but it's an excellent example of the passion Ron Paul's evoking. I found this video to be quite moving, actually. Go Ron Paul!