The Bigger Problem

On one level, I think Paul deserves all of the newsletter-related grief he is getting.  The most plausible charitable explanation is that Paul and his associates looked at the most slanderous, incendiary, things liberals said about Republicans winning elections based on appeals to bigotry and said to themselves “Hey, let’s try THAT for our newsletter business.”  There should be a political price for such appeals to bigorty (even if the bill comes due rather late.)

But it would be a mistake to dismiss the Paul phenomenon (or to hope that it fades into insignificance) based on the newsletter stuff.  Paul is polling in the teens nationally and even better in the early states.  We have reached the point where the majority of Paul’s supporters are no longer drawn from the overlapping categories of conspiracy theory enthusiasts, neo-confederates, and the those who self-marginalize out of temperament.  There are a lot of people reacting to real issues of size of government, civil liberties and the cost of American defense commitments.  Take monetary policy.  People have real questions about monetary policy and the only candidate giving them earnest answers has been Paul.  Paul’s opponents have mostly just tried to imitate Paul’s rhetorical style (too much loose Federal Reserve money etc.), while avoiding any of Paul’s policy commitments. 

That doesn’t mean that Republicans should start agreeing with Paul.  It does mean they should be giving contrasting and non-sputtering answers.  I agree with Peter Lawler that the Ron Paul problem is pretty complicated for Republicans.  The single biggest part of the problem is that the solution involves the other Republican presidential candidates respectfully explaining non-Ron Paul center-right policies to voters who don’t already buy into those non-Ron Paul policies.  This means being willing to forthrightly defend some version of monetarism in debate.  It means having a realistic plan to bring government spending down to a sustainable level (and not garbage about sending Congress home.)  It means explaining why your preferred level of Medicaid spending is better than Paul’s preferred level of Medicaid spending.  It means challenging Paul from a position of principle and well thought out policy argument.  Ron Paul aside, it would be pretty good practice for the general election.

The thing is, I don’t expect any of the other Republican candidates to take on Paul in this way.  Gingrich could not be more cynical and his first instinct is to go along with whatever is working for someone else.  Romney is just glad that much of the not-Romney vote is going to someone who has little or no chance to get the nomination.  Huntsman is just hoping Romney implodes somehow.  Santorum, Bachmann and Perry lack the horsepower to take on Paul on domestic policy. 

The Ron Paul phenomenon didn’t just happen.  It is a symptom of a Republican field where none of the other candidates are able to explain their policies to people who don’t already agree with them.  It is a field where the steadiest candidate (Romney) has shown zero durable policy principles.  It is a field where the two most recent frontrunners (Gingrich and Cain) are transparent frauds.  Was the clownish Cain really the frontrunner at one point or was that a bad dream?  So some fraction of the public might be forgiven for supporting a guy who actually seems serious about the spending cuts he proposes. 

If any of the other Republican presidential candidates had the combination of principle and competence to explain a reformist conservative agenda to conservatives and nonconservatives alike, the Ron Paul phenomenon would not have taken its present form.  That is the real problem.  That problem will be there even if Paul doesn’t run as a third party candidate.  It will be there if Ron Paul gets run over by a bus tomorrow.