It looks obvious

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” — Albert Einstein

Trapped in a corner

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This statement, although related to Giuliani’s health care plan, demonstrates Ron Paul’s Campaign problem:

Over at U.S. News & World Report, James Pethokoukis has a piece titled, “GOP Debate: Giuliani’s Libertarian Health Reform,” where he echoes my observation that Rudy Giuliani gave the best health care answer of all the GOP presidential candidates in the most recent debate — sounding even more libertarian than libertarian Ron Paul.

In fact the audience didn’t have a chance to listen to Ron Paul’s position on Health Care. And despite the fact that many would like to blame the mainstream media for ignoring Dr. Paul, I think that the problem lays elsewhere. Watching the debate it seems like Ron Paul position himself as a one issue candidate, which all he is talking about is the the war in Iraq and the American Foreign Policy paradigm.

I don’t argue that Ron Paul is loosing the chance to win the GOP nomination, I don’t think it was ever the issue. But promoting Liberty cannot be limited to one issue. Ron Paul has a broader agenda than he presented in the last debate, It is time for his campaign to stop hiding it.

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Written by Rogel

June 7th, 2007 at 10:07 am

Posted in 2008 campaign

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    I just listened to a radio interview where Ron Paul went in depth into his health care positions. The problems with this "debate" format is that all candidates are not allowed to respond to the same question. The moderator picks the question that each candidate can respond to. When some candidates get 14 question and others 6. The one that gets 6 will seem to have a limited agenda.
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    You are making a good point, Sean. However I think that Dr. Paul could have done better with the little room the moderator gave him. When asked about global warming the answer should not have been about the war in Iraq. I also noticed that other candidates knew to ignore the question asked and push their agenda - when done correctly it can be very effective.
    Participating in debates that are air on national debate is not a common opportunity, and I fear that we are wasting the little that we get.
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    I know what you are saying. I think Dr. Paul is just too decent a person to go off topic a lot like some of the other candidates. When asked to respond yes/no he will give a quick answer usually yes/no.  The top "tier" will take the opportunity to ramble on. They know that hogging time will seem presidential to some people even if what they say doesn't make any sense. or answer any of the questions.
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    It seems like Dr. Paul went into this debate with a definite strategy to hammer home his position on the war and foreign policy.  The only problem is that this strategy was probably based on the assumption that he was going to be attacked for his stance (by Guiliani or others) as he was in the second debate and he would be able to create a highlight reel and get some mileage from it.If that was the strategy, it had one flaw--it dependended on the other candidates to go after him.  Unfortunately they didn't do that.  Whether it was because they realized they had nothing to gain by engaging a second tier candidate or because they were afraid of the public spanking they would get we'll never know, but it's pretty easy to draw the conclusion that the latter would be very damaging.And isn't it odd that they would ask an ordained misister about moral questions but fail to ask a physician about healthcare?Interesting.
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    The question remains, will he be able to get out of the position of one issue candidate. I'm not so optimistic.
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    I think he can, and I think he will.  I think he was trying to bait the other candidates into that discussion because he's so much stronger on foreign policy than they are--stick to your strengths. None of them fell for it.

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