By
popular demand, I'll weigh in on Ron Paul's CPAC speech (I've
discussed it previously
here). Paul was very well received by the crowd. Partly,
that's because large numbers of his own supporters -- the
Campaign for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty -- were
there. But he was also applauded by many of the same mainstream
conservatives who would later stomp and cheer for Mitt Romney.
The crowd was less stacked with Paulites than during his 2008
CPAC speech and the Paulities that were there looked much more
like regular CPAC-goers than the more colorful types who came to
hear Paul last year.
What gives? It isn't so much that Ron Paul's foreign-policy views
have become more popular among conservatives, though they
certainly do have a following. If anything, the surge has made
most conservatives more convinced of the rightness of the Iraq
mission than they were in 2006. Maybe humanitarian interventions
or a muddled Afghan operation under Obama will make
noninterventionism more popular on the right; maybe, given
problems that could arise in Iran and elsewhere, it won't become
more popular. But foreign policy has receded as an issue given
the financial meltdown, the bailouts and stimulus packages, and
Obama's agenda of government growth. Here is the area where Paul
has the most to say to a Republican audience.
Paul didn't flinch from criticizing the Republicans' Bush-era
record on spending and expanding the federal government, but much
of that has become conservative conventional wisdom. Yet Paul
also hit the Democrats hard, saying they'll "make us look like
pikers" and strongly opposing their new spending. His Austrian
economic views offer a counter-narrative to the liberal lament
that the market is to blame for the bad economy, one that is
getting more of a hearing in mainstream conservative circles.
Paul had to be pleased to tie the 2008 vice-presidential nominee
in the CPAC straw poll, finishing third with 13 percent of the
vote, seven points behind the winner. A question for 2012 is
whether he will be the candidate of free markets, sound money,
fiscal discipline, cutting the federal budget back down to
constitutional size, and limited government at home and abroad or
whether another more mainstream candidate will pick up the
mantle. Like Mark
Sanford, perhaps.
