Ron Paul Vs Obama

[Mr Khan]

HappySqurriel said:

Mr Khan said:

The libertarian wing is going to eviscerate itself due to the Tea Party in 2012, this i declare. There's too much anger there for the movement to work properly, and we're going to see a Republican convention similar to the Democrats in 68 (though not nearly as extreme), because you've got a moderate wing and an angry wing espousing violence and secessionism

 

The proper libertarians need to ditch the Republican party, let alone the tea party. If it is really time for their ideas to be heard, they shouldn't be drowned out by the single-issue screams from the Moral Majority and the militants.

This is why I think there is an opportunity for a king-maker ...

Basically, you can keep the Tea Party and the Republican Party as two entirely separate entities that can each effectively campaign against the Democrats; and if the Tea Party gives their support to the Republican party (possibly by default) it allows the Republican party to have an energized and motivated base while focusing their efforts on campaigning for moderates. Effectively, it opens up a second front in the political campaign and Obama will have to answer to questions about the unsustainability of the deficit as well as whether he was personally going to pull the plug on grandma at the same time.

There is a risk that this could backfire though, because if the tea-party voters want the Republican candidate to support many or all of the same positions they take they could just as easily campaign against the Republican candidate as against the Democrat candidate.

the main problem is that they would be playing with fire either way. A movement with strong motivation is invaluable, but a movement that goes too far is immediately going to turn off that undecided median that always decides the elections anyway. There are elements in the tea party (not the whole one, but the louder elements) that could demonize the whole movement

 

This phenomenon has happened before. Women's Lib back in the 60's lost momentum because certain elements were too extreme, which is also what decimated the anti-war movement around the same time as an effective political force, and what knocked the steam out of the KKK as the mainstream political organ it had almost become in the 20's