It looks obvious

The MSNBC coverage of the Rally for the Republic is very interesting. It starts with the usual smirking and moving to much more serious discussion about the magnitude and importance of the Ron Paul phenomena.

Ron Paul was never in a real position to win the Republican nomination, the significance of his campaign was in its ability to trigger a movement to restore the ideas of limited government and individual freedom. Ron Paul was able to built a coalition, and naturally I don’t agree with some parts of this coalition, and this together with continuation efforts to establish a real movement are the real success of the Ron Paul Campaign.

I was able to avoid the Olympic games completely and I’m sure the Chinese are deeply moved by my decision to boycott the games. Following this achievement I decided to continue with avoiding the circus called the Parties national convention. As of this moment I didn’t watch, listen or read anything about the DNC and the coming RNC. I wonder how long a news junkie like me can avoid those useless events - but by god it is great feeling.

I put on my car a new sticker that say:

I don’t see any real voting choice, and no I don’t think that I’ll vote for Bob Barr, So I think I’ll exercise my right to not vote. Whatever bad things the next President will make - higher taxes, national service, less freedom of speech - Don’t dare blaming me, I didn’t vote for any of them!

I took the car to the repair shop and while the guy was fixing the car we engaged in a conversation. His two sons served as marines in Iraq, and are now back at home. He told me that he is against the war, he didn’t understand why his sons had to risk their live over there and what American interest did it serve. He said something that I found very remarkable about Iran - USSR, he said, had thousands of missiles and we knew how to live with it and didn’t thought that we must destroy them - why can’t we live with few missiles that Iran might develop?

The repair shop was covered with posters of Reagan, Oliver North and some guys that I didn’t recognize. I was voting for the Republican candidate for years, he said, but I don’t know what will I do in november. Than he opened the car’s trunk and saw old campaign signs calling to elect Ron Paul. Who is this guy, he asked me, I never heard about him…

The more than million votes that Ron Paul received in the last primaries are only a drop in the sea. We must learn how to get to the masses, to people like the guy in the repair shop that could easily turned into voters. The fact that they never even heard the name Ron Paul is something that should not happened again. 

This is funny:

When the Republican Party issued a clarion call last week for its grassroots supporters to submit ideas online to build the party’s platform, Republican National Committee officials probably weren’t expecting a concerted push for the dismantling of the Federal Reserve and a return to the gold standard.

But Ron Paul supporters have made themselves at home on the the GOP platform site, sounding many of the themes that turned the Texas congressman’s doomed run for the Republican presidential nod into an internet cause célèbre.

This is, sadly, makes no difference as the GOP going to completely ignore the suggestion it so insincerely solicited. More to the point the platform is going to be ignored even before it is ever written. But the gesture, made by those grassroots activists, clearly makes a point.

They will need to work much harder in order to “grab” my vote. Unfortunately this election aren’t going to be close election, and the potential appeal of swing votes in states like Georgia or the mountain west states will not have the desired effect.

With iconoclast Ron Paul having ended his quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination — his platform had called for, among other things, ending the Iraq War, repealing the PATRIOT Act, returning to the gold standard and eliminating taxes on tips — his many dedicated supporters are up for grabs.

[...]

It’s a support base that could make the difference in a close election, and while there’s no guarantee that his supporters will turn out at the polls for GOP standard-bearer John McCain, one thing seems clear: Despite their overlapping anti-Iraq war positions, Barack Obama will not make major inroads among them.

I always had the impression that the only things you can find in Idaho are potatoes, and a Potato Commission, But I was wrong. Apparently Idaho has also a strong core of individual liberty and it demonstrated it in yesterday’s Primaries.

I know that it doesn’t mean anything for these elections. And I also know that it will be mistake to try to give to much importance to the fact that 30% of the GOP voters yesterday voted against the party presumptive nominee because it can be explained by low interest in primaries that are already decided. However it is always nice to see that 24% of primaries voters express their desire to see stronger wing of libertarianism in the GOP, and I thing it will be a mistake to dismiss this phenomena.

So, are you coming to DC on July 12th?

I decided to dedicate my lunch break today to Ron Paul’s book signing which was around the corner from where I’m working. I thought that the half hour lunch break will be sufficient and that I can grab something to eat later. How little did I knew.

As soon as I stepped into the store one of the worker announced that the Book - The Revolution: A Manifesto - is already sold out. I didn’t care much because I bought it from Amazon a while ago, but many people had to travel to other stores (One told me he had to go uptown to get it). The line of people waiting from the book signing was long, and although I was standing in the middle of it and although it moved pretty fast, it took me more than an hour and a half to get to the actual signing.

I will have to work an additional hour today, but I was impress with the large, and diverse, crowd that came in the middle of working day for this event. People from all ages and professions came to meet the Ron Paul and to express their gratitude for his efforts and to encourage him to continue fighting for the ideals of liberty.

Here is another, very compelling, explanation for my question from yesterday:

Look at the blogs. This just amazes me. These people know the issues better than the journalists covering the campaign. While the journalist are fixated on the presidential horse race the Ron Paul masses are chewing on why the government does what it does and what it should be doing instead and how to fix it all. And most important of all, the Paulists and their Blogs keep challenging the “why.” They are not just debating how to solve the social security problem, they are debating what its purpose should or should not be in the first place. They are not just discussing the national debt and settling the details of the budget, they are discussing what the role of government should be and how the corruption of that role will always lead back to the same financial challenges.

This is truly an intellectual revolution. Small, under the radar screen, but resolute. They keep coming and they keep winning converts in spite of the fact that it is all over. They don’t seem to care what the pontificating celebrities on television have to say. In Pennsylvania they turned out by the tens of thousands. Apparently they were just scoping out the polling booths and voting for Ron Paul as a rehearsal for that moment four years from now when they expect to be pulling the lever for a winner. Or perhaps they don’t even care about that either. They may just be voting because the ideas make sense. And that in itself is its own reward.

The big story from yesterday’s Primaries voting in PA is obviously Clinton’s victory. However I was looking with interest at the GOP Primaries’ results. It was expected that Ron Paul’s percentage will be higher, due to less general interest among GOP voters, and therefore the 16% were not surprising. What is surprising, however, is that Ron Paul received the highest number of votes in a primary state yet - significantly higher.

I assume that the increase in the votes is partly because protest conservative votes are split between Huckabee and Ron Paul. Additionally it is possible that Paul’s view of the economy get more attention as the prospect of deep recession become more common. And yet I don’t think that these explanations are the complete explanation why more people choose to vote for Ron Paul, now when the “competition” is practically over than when it did mattered.

Any Ideas?