You are currently browsing the daily archive for August 13th, 2007.
Sean Hannity once again continued what appears to be a purposeful attempt to avoid the naming of Ron Paul. Hannity took a large portion of his first hour to discuss the Ames Straw Poll. He praised Romney by asserting that we should honor the successful men of our country. He proceeded to name the Republicans starting with winner Mitt Romney; he then mentioned second place Mike Huckabee, third place Sam Brownback, fourth place Tom Tancredo, and before mentioning the fifth, (Ron Paul) he skipped to mention that Tommy Thompson (sixth place) dropped out of the race. I may be overly skeptical here, but there is reason to believe that Hannity has continually avoided the mention of Ron Paul on his radio program since the day second Republican debate, where he and Paul had a heated discussion in the post-debate interview. Fortunately, the Wall Street Journal observed Ron Paul’s campaign success:
Fourth place and fifth place went, respectively, to Reps. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Ron Paul of Texas — impressive showings for two men with narrowly defined candidacies.
Mr. Paul, meanwhile, has built a fanatical following that has embraced his libertarian message and antiwar, anti-interventionist views; supporters came at their own expense from as far as Washington state to help out, though only Iowans could vote.
My friend James runs an excellent blog. He posted this great youtube link on his page. Though my caption may read a little different from his, we basically agree. My caption is: The Postmillenial Hope or better yet: Don’t mess with the church. I would love to hear your caption on the comment section. Truly, this is amazing.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/LU8DDYz68kM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
A long weekend indeed. Starting on Friday night we spent an excellent evening with some new friends. These friends are new to Presbyterianism and very interested in covenant theology. I had the excellent opportunity to make a case for infant baptism. I hope our conversations continue in the days ahead.
On Saturday, I was glued on the Ames Straw poll and blogged live for about an hour. At 1PM I headed to Olive Garden where we had our first Ron Paul meetup group in this region. There were four of us, which is a great number for a first meet-up group in this part of the city. Ron Paul has more meet-up groups than any other candidate in the country, so it was enjoyable to discuss politics and strategies with these other three gentleman.
Later in the afternoon, we headed to Clearwater. Once we arrived we had dessert with old friends and then headed to the home of a couple that my wife and I knew from college. We talked late into the night about many topics.
On the Lord’s Day, we headed to Grace Community Church (PCA) where I preached on Joshua 6. My title was: The Liturgy of God. It was an interesting experience to find the church and see a sign that read: The Liturgy. My first response was: Where is the rest of the title? but then I thought it sounded like a Tom Clancy novel. The people were warm and receptive and I was able to deliver a 30 minute sermon, which went very well. A wonderful weekend indeed.
A fifth place on the Iowa straw poll is indeed incredible. I must confess, however, as an eternal optimist, that a third place would have been even better. Nevertheless, when you spend so little in a straw poll and when your opponents invest everything but their very lives, I think you can see why the excitement of Ron Paul supporters continue to grow. Perhaps Andrew Main summarizes it best:
I think Ron Paul’s placement in this poll was just about perfect: strong enough to solidly refute the ‘pundits’ — intellectual followers (not to mention shills) who like to pretend they are leaders — and provide just enough encouragement to the troops to keep everyone working hard, while still making clear just how far there is still to go. It is, after all, still a year (?) till the nominating convention, 15 months (!) to the actual election. (I shudder to think how much damage Dubya & friends can still do — but even that might not be bad for the rEVOLution.) Too much early success is not healthy, as many past ’sure thing’ candidates can attest.
A fifth position solidifies that the Paul campaign is no longer an internet scam on TV polls. This is a crucial victory early on in the campaign. The truth is that if this campaign will thrive in the next few months, Ron Paul supporters will have to multiply. This is already happening in meet-up groups across the country and even on a financial level. Recently, Ron Paul stated that his campaign had raised over $75,000 in 24 hours. As the media has become very much aware, Ron Paul’s campaign used the least amount of money in the poll and bore the greatest fruit. Whereas the Romney campaign used the greatest amount of money and bore the least fruit. So far it has been noted that he paid over $500 for each vote, whereas the second place Huckabee, spent under $100. Ron Paul’s numbers should be out soon, but we may just assume that he spent under $60 for each vote. The straw poll in Ames, Iowa is truly not to be taken as the definitive poll on anything this early on the election, rather it serves to point out the ability a candidate has to organize his volunteers and indeed Ron Paul supporters and volunteers once again shattered any misconception that we are merely internet-based.
Another positive element of this straw poll is that it eliminates competition. Out of the 11 candidates, some were counting significantly on their standing in this poll. Tommy Thompson who traveled over 99 counties in Iowa seeking to make a powerful impression, ended behind Ron Paul in sixth place and was left with no other alternative but to step down. With Thompson out of the race, Paul will have more time to make his positions clear in debates. It truly is a process of elimination. Duncan Hunter is also expected to drop out of the race in the days ahead. Truly, the absurdity of it all is that Ron Paul is the only candidate to reflect the Old Right promoting a foreign policy of non-intervention and a return to Constitutional principles, whereas all other candidates are in general agreement with each other. Hence, the fight becomes one of name recognition and experience. Ron Paul’s future is bright and the cause of freedom and peace is the cause of the future. Let the base die and the Revolution continue.
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I guess we were right and they were wrong…again.
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One out, 8 to go.
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