Ron Paul

It is getting to the time of year that I really wish we lived in New Hampshire.

You see in Vermont, you can't watch the tube for one hour without hitting upon a commercial for Obama, Hillary, Mitt, Rudy or some other Republican or Democrat who wants to be president. Unfortunately in Vermont our vote doesn't even count. In the Presidential race you can just about chalk up Vermont as a blue state (if it were ever to be competitive you would be in the midst of a Republican landslide in which my vote still doesn't matter). And we have a dinky presidential primary that nobody cares about. So we in Vermont get blessed with all of these political commercials that aren't directed at us. How annoying.

Ah New Hampshire. That is where your vote counts. First of all it is a classic swing state (trending red but whatever). And they have the first presidential primary where a state of what 600K or 700K folks have a way disproportionate role of choosing the next President. I would think that at the least if we in Vermont have to put up with all of these political commercials, that we at least should have a primary that somebody cares about.

Which brings me to Ron Paul. For the last month or so (to the annoyance of my family), I have driven my green suby with a Ron Paul bumper sticker. This is the first political bumper sticker of any stripe that I have allowed to grace any of my cars..and the last since I think we had "American Abortion - Hitler Would Have Loved It" that I think we got from my grandfather who got it I think from Jimmy Swaggart ministries. That was back in the 1980s.

I got the bumper sticker while in downtown Burlington from a Ron Paul stand set up on church street. It was raining and I really didn't have time to talk to the campaign volunteers, but I did manage to scrounge a bumper sticker.

Now politically I have one absolute. I will not vote for a pro-abortion candidate (now at times I might vote for a pro-choice candidate like our governor as the lesser of two evils, but never a pro-abortion candidate. Maybe a second, I will not vote for a candidate that supports gay marriage, but these candidates are rare and to be honest the gay issues are much less important to me than the abortion issue (killing innocent human life is much more weighty than unjustified governmental preferences). I am more interested in gay issues from the perspective of protecting the rights of folks and religions who have dissenting views than in stopping a couple of gay guys from getting a civil union (I can really see on down the line the United States becoming like Sweden where pastors get thrown in jail for preaching a sermon against homosexuality).

That having been said I have a number of political preferences (a preference is something I can change my mind on).
* I really value character. It would be a hard sell to vote for somebody I consider a slime ball.
* I prefer small, unobtrusive government to overpowering government.
* I want my government to be very conservative when it comes to sending our sons and daughters off to war to get killed. Only if it is well justified please (Iraq is not).
* I like fiscal responsibility. If I have to balance my checkbook, I would think the government should do the same.
* I would like a very small federal government. Defer as much as makes sense to the states please. Leave hot-button issues up to the states.
* In the same vein, please appoint judges that will defer to the states. If the good people in the state of Mississippi want to ban abortion and if there is nothing in the constitution that specifically allows abortion, then let the good people of Mississippi do what they want. It's their state. The same BTW works with Massachusetts and gay marriage. Just don't impose gay marriage on the other 49 states without their consent.
* Big changes have unexpected consequences. Work incrementally please.

As you can see, my political philosophy is conservative / libertarian (in fact I like to call myself a pro-life libertarian..I can explain that or a small "l" libertarian). Now pure libertarianism takes some stuff to extremes that I am not comfortable with (legalization of drugs for example), but there is much basis for agreement anyway.

Ron Paul (Libertarian presidential candidate in 1984 or 1988) is the only Presidential candidate that is an identical match on my absolutes and all of my preferences and is a near match on my philosophy.

I can eliminate the Democratic candidates right off for being pro-abortion. I am trying to decide whether Rudy is eliminated on a mixture of pro-abortion and general slimeball (plus being a Yankee fan does not help). The remaining Republicans are mixed on my preference.

BTW, if Ron Paul were not in the race, I think I would be supporting John McCain. Although he and I disagree on Iraq, he has earned enough respect from me over his career so that I can forgive him (and he was right on the surge). All of the other Republicans..meh at at best now (this includes Huckabee whom I am deferring drinking the kool-aid on right now just because he is evangelical Christian..I did that on Carter and Bush 2.0).

And I really wish Sam Brownback were still running.