As long as we're on the subject of Ron Paul: On Thursday, I
expressed
skepticism about a theory, advanced by Conn Carroll of
Hotline's Blogometer, that Paul would hurt Barack Obama by
siphoning off New Hampshire independents; Andrew Sullivan likes
both Obama and Paul, and Carroll seemed to be extrapolating from
Sullivan's views a bit too easily. I didn't get a chance to mention
it (mainly because I was traveling over the weekend), but Carroll
emailed in a response:
True Sullivan is rarely representative of others
thinking, but we are already trying to shrink a pretty
idiosyncratic crowd: Ron Paul supporters...
If we want to figure out who a well funded Ron Paul campaign
will affect, we have to look at who potential Paul supporters
probably are, and then ask ourselves who else is appealing to
voters like that. A Paul voter is: 1) anti-war; 2) anti-Washington;
3) does not regularly participate in partisan primaries; and 4) is
susceptible to grandiose calls for 'change'.
That is an Obama voter right there.
As I said before, Carroll may be on to something, but I'm still not
entirely convinced. Obama and Paul do have an anti-Washington
streak in common, but there's also a lot of distance between them,
both substantively and stylistically. Obama's attack on Washington
is rooted in an optimistic liberalism that hinges on the idea that
the government can be made to work well if only someone will
straighten out the bickering Beltway partisans and get them to work
together. Paul's attack on Washington is rooted in a pessimistic
libertarianism that hinges on the idea that the government can't
ever do anything right, at home or abroad, and at some point the
political class forgot this and everything went horribly wrong. How
much overlap is there between the groups that are attracted to
those two respective messages? I'd say that it's an open question.
topics:
Barack Obama, Libertarianism
