A decent political analysis piece by David Weigel in the UK Guardian.
Put in that perspective, Paul’s graduation from the fringes to a
serious presidential campaign says as much about his party as it does
about him. The old party of "small government" now supports enhancing
the state’s power to spy or detain prisoners indefinitely. A party with
a long-running isolationist streak is becoming inhospitable for war
doves – every Republican who votes against funding the Iraq war, Paul
included, has a pro-war candidate challenging him for re-election in
2008. In this climate, with the party so fraught and fractured, a
colorful libertarian is starting to gain some steam. Why is Washington
so surprised?
Paul isn’t "isolationist," he’s non-interventionist. This is the same sort of smear racial separatists get when called "supremacists." At any rate, Daniel McAdams gets at the other nitpicks in an otherwise fine overview.
If Paul’s campaign breaks out into a political revolution of sorts, I was wondering this morning about the essential distinctions between that and the Regan "revolution." Offhand, Regan’s rise was part economic (cut taxes) and part changing the Cold War dialog to take and secure the moral high ground. The first was a bait & switch, while the second was effective, in my judgment. Paul’s revolution, if he can manage it, it clearly focussed on freedom and liberty as essential principles. No way America is ready for anything so radical, in my estimation, but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
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