Commentary
Dear Ron Paul:
I am your biggest fan. I also donate to your campaign because I believe in your message.
I want you to win. You are the only candidate who has the ability and ideas to bring our country back to prosperity and peace.
I understand that it has been a lonely fight for you in Congress over these many years of your service. It is a tribute to you that you have been true to your principles.
While you have achieved great success in the Iowa straw poll, it is clear from the media that no one is taking you seriously. You are seen as being able to rally your libertarian base, but when it comes to the big numbers in a primary, they see you as losing out to more mainstream candidates. You have been marginalized.
It is my hope that you are running to win and not just to popularize libertarian and free market ideas, or just to skew the national dialogue to freedom.
My problem is that I don’t think you are running to win.
I watched you during the last debate and while I agreed with everything you said, you are preaching to the choir. You need to speak to America.
Another way to say this is that you need to be more presidential. Perhaps all those years of having to defend your principles has resulted in your feisty and wonkish style. But you keep selling steak rather than the sizzle. If you really want to win, you have to sell the vision of a great country based on the libertarian ideals of our founders.
For example, when speaking about the economy you passed up the opportunity to comment on the fact that none of the other candidates have a clue about how to make the economy recover. Yet you know how to bring prosperity by unleashing the great power of our entrepreneurial society and you don’t have to quote Mises to do it. And you fumbled your conclusion by failing to stress the end game. Yet this is America’s number one issue.
Craft a better message. Work on your presentation. Get a new speechwriter. Play for keeps.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Harding
Unfortunately, the truth is sometimes not conducive to winning.
Well said, Jeff. Rand is much smoother. Ron may be Moses, Rand may be Joshua.
I’m inclined to agree with you, but it doesn’t help that the media, all the media, ignore him no matter how well he does. The only way this will change is if he actually wins a primary election (or more likely two primaries). Until then, he will continue to be ‘he who must not be named’.
The Republican Party has to decide if they want to re-live the 1996 election, not because I think Ron Paul will run as a third party candidate (which I think is too bad), but because at least half of those who vote for Ron Paul will not vote for another Republican. Ignoring Ron Paul is the same as helping Obama.
Ron Paul speaks from the heart. I don’t think he has a speech writer. He speaks from his experience.
If there is any doubt in Ron Paul’s in it to win it, spend a little time at the Paul aggretizer site, Lew Rockwell’s Political Theater.
You will quickly find out the outpouring of support coming his way.
The Ron Paul Revolution has begun.
Jeff…thanks a lot for writing what many of us are thinking about. Mr. Paul must start ‘talking’ to the people in their language
but with his ideas. Talk about the greatness potential of this country based on Constitution and return to the ideals that built this country. He needs to challenge his opponents’ words and ask them define what they are saying to reveal their lack of a philosophical foundation. People are hungry for specifics and not platitudes and ‘talking points’ repeated over and over. I suggest that he reduce his focus on eliminating the Federal Reserve and reinstating a gold standard (which I agree with) but is beyond what the ‘guy in the street’ can comprehend. He needs to stay with improving the economy, jobs, reducing the military footprint and foreign aid and providing some confidence to the listener that the future will be brighter after passing through some turbulent times. If he does not do this the prevailing
comment that I hear from others….”HE IS UNELECTABLE” will be the outcome.
Excellent Letter, covered all my thoughts. I think the good Dr. comes across as being too humble and not aggressive enough to be a leader. America wants to be lead, so they don’t have to think. We really should be better educated in the classics and the proper place of government but our schools have socially engineered followers.
You don’t become part of the “Choir” without being converted. I participate in Yahoo’s Politics and a Ron Paul Revolution is starting and I have been fighting for it. The internet will get him elected as we get people to listen to him. He touches my heart. You know where I was when I started writing to you Jeff. I am part of his choir. I understand your criticism but I think that unless you are touched by his message, truly touched and inflamed with a Zeal to see him in, then you can’t hear him anyway. I fight for Dr. Paul 10 hours a day now on line.
Ron Paul
2012
The only one who can see us through the coming times
I agree, but Ron Paul is never going to be Ronald Reagan. With Paul, it’s always been about the ideas and not the man.