Quango - The Cult of Ron Paul

Most politicians enjoy kissing babies, but Ron Paul is the only guy on the frontline of American politics who enjoys guiding their soft little heads down a slippery birth canal, then grabbing at them expertly with the salad spoons to wrestle them over any bumpy bits. As a former OB-GYN with over 30 years experience, his personal website boasts that he’s delivered over 4,000 little sprogs. Paul is the Republican presidential candidate who you've heard of but probably forgotten about. Despite often topping the Iowa straw polls that are a mainstay of US presidential primaries, he doesn’t mix it with the big boys, and he doesn’t pull overseas press attention because: a) he’s been running for president since 1988, and old news gets tired fast, and b) apart from the 6% of Americans who are hopelessly devoted to his cause, everyone thinks he’s crackers. Right-wing? Ron Paul makes Michele Bachmann look like Joe Stalin. According to University of Georgia research, he has the most conservative voting record of any American congressman since 1937. Let’s just have a look at some of the people who’ve been in the congress since 1937:

Hardcore segregationist Strom Thurmond, who fought against the 1967 Civil Rights act with a record 24-hour and 18-minute filibuster, and who saw the struggle for black equality in America as part of a communist plot to take the White House.

Joseph McCarthy, the famous witch-hunter.

Jesse “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy” Helms.

And this guy:

That’s right: they’re all pinko wets compared to Ron Paul. Look at him:

Look into his twinkling OB-GYN eyes. His all-USA Jimmy Stewart smile. Now consider, when he was delivering those babies, he was whispering into their ears: “Very well, sonny-Jim. You’re coming into this world, and I wish you a nice time while you’re here. But if you ever become a burden on the state, just don’t come running to me for help, because I’ll cast you out into the street with nothing. Nothing, you hear. I mean it…” Ron Paul is the missing link between the tinfoil helmet crank brigade and the Tea Party. No matter how much stuff he spouts about all money needing to be backed by gold, he always does so with the same clear-eyed, upstanding demeanour of a family physician. He has the scalpel mind of someone who has thought through their entire philosophical stance from a core set of first principles: either the way of the truly principled politician, or the truly deluded zealot, depending on which side of the fence you sit.
 
By consistently polling around 10% among Republicans, he’s building bridges between loopy libertarians and actually-potentially-electable libertarians. Having run for the Presidency for the Libertarian Party in 1988, he’s since found an uneasy seat on the Republicans’ far-benches, and everyone’s now terrified he might split the vote Nader-style in 2012 by going back to his third-party roots.
 
He thinks they should completely dismantle the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank. He thinks America should leave the UN. And Nato. And NAFTA. And the WTO. And get out of Afghanistan immediately. He was one of only eight Republicans who voted against the Iraq War. But he’s also for legalising cannabis. And for putting heroin back where it belongs – in all the nation’s pharmacies. And he’s got no real problems with gay marriage. He says a Paul presidency would slash $1 trillion off of the national budget in its first year – the sort of cut that has probably never been tried anywhere in the world. He’d abolish petty inconsequential stuff like the Department For Energy. And the Department for Health. And, to signify the sort of man-o’-the-people president he’d be, he would claim only the median American salary of $39,000 a year. Though in fairness, he’d probably have to revise that figure downwards in years two and three of his administration, when the median US salary would be some moss and half a goat after the economy entirely seized up. He’d make the manufacture of currency a private enterprise – anyone would be allowed to make their own coinage, provided it was redeemable against a government-agreed amount of gold. And he’d eat a puppy every day on live TV just to assure the public he wasn’t getting too wishy-washy.
 
Even the Fox News gang have little truck with his unique brand of freedom-worshiping machismo – Bill O’Reilly sneeringly referred to his fervent band of supporters as "almost a cult". Which is ironic, as effectively, Paul is midwife to the entire Tea Party movement. By banging on about minimal government for 25 years, he has focused the whole lens of American politics on the issue. Mainstreamers might not actually vote for him, but mainstream politicians now have to court the opinions of the constituency he has created if they want to get elected. Pity that his beliefs are so extreme even the world’s most famous Austrian citizen wouldn’t have been down with them.

Previously: Quango - Job Interviews For President