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Amazing. It is headline news on both Fox and CNN this morning. I had pretty much given up on conservativism. Maybe there is hope yet for a broad left-right antiwar coalition when a candidate who is to the left of Kucinich on foreign policy wins a straw poll of the leading conservative organization in the United State. This is highly significant given the fact that Mitt Romney and other leading GOP lights had spoken at the conference.
Rand Paul is winning with a what is essentially republican rhetoric. From his website:
Dr. Paul has clearly stated that the most important function of the federal government is national defense. Rand supports robust funding for our military. Under Dr. Paul’s vision, the percentage of our federal budget spent on national defense would increase.
Dr. Paul supports keeping enemy combatants at Guantanamo and never bringing them to American soil. He supports military tribunals and not civilian trials for detainees. He would end visas that allow terrorists to come to our country with our permission."
Donald Meinshausen -
2/26/2010
The biggest news in politics in the past year has been the tea party movement and it is the reason that Obamacare and other bad legislation has been shelved. despite being maligned as stupid, reactionary or racist by the left as well as by even some libertarians. This is a grass roots small "l" libertarian movement that is looking to get back at the GOP as well as Obama and they are doing so. Want more evidence look at how well Rand Paul is doing in KY as he is 21 points ahead.
Brad Potts -
2/22/2010
I'm starstruck on a blog comments section.
Robert-MF'in-Higgs just used my words!
As I am an avid reader of revisionist history and Austrian economics, I want to say that you, sir, are the best and the brightest.
Keep up the excellent work.
Robert Higgs -
2/22/2010
Vapid and rudderless, to be sure, yet we may rest assured that the conservatives will be ever ready to spill the blood of any and all foreigners, for any reason or none at all, and that they will always support the invasion of their neighbors' personal affairs, to make them "virtuous" at gunpoint. No alliance between libertarians and these uptight, bloodthirsty people is conceivable.
Robert Higgs -
2/22/2010
Vapid and rudderless, to be sure, yet we may rest assured that the conservatives will be ever ready to spill the blood of any and all foreigners, for any reason or none at all, and that they will always support the invasion of their neighbors' personal affairs, to make them "virtuous" at gunpoint. No alliance between libertarians and these uptight, bloodthirsty people is conceivable.
Brad Potts -
2/22/2010
The democrats paid lip service to civil liberties and the anti-war movement before completely abandoning those in order to push fiscal issues.
I have no doubt these conservatives have no real love for libertarian foreign and domestic policies and are just co-opting Paul's fiscal conservatism as rhetoric.
You can still consider conservatism a vapid and rudderless cause.
David T. Beito -
2/21/2010
You nailed it. It is also a good thing because this has has thoroughly embarrased conservative leaders. The rightwing talk show hosts have been promoting the conference for the last week. One wonders what they will make of this.
David T. Beito -
2/21/2010
I don' think this is necessarily inconsistent. Most of the delegates booed when Paul won. He only captured a third of the vote but this is still great fun.
Mark Brady -
2/21/2010
Yes, Ron Paul wins a straw poll of those attending the conference.
Keep in mind that Paul won because of his very heavy following among the twenty-somethings that invaded CPAC. This is a good thing, IMO, as it suggests that the future of conservatism might be more libertarian. Til then, though...
Allan Walstad -
2/21/2010
I'm not sure I buy the "left of Kucinich" characterization, and I'm sure Paul himself would say that his is the true, traditional conservative position on foreign policy, i.e., non-interventionism. It's the neocons who are most strongly pushing imperial militarization of this country, and I'd like to think that their ascendency in conservatism and in the Republican Party might still be reversible. Paul's success suggests that it is.
