The Ron Paul Aftermath

Among Republicans, the Ron Paul campaign inspired the most remarkable grassroots campaign activity in 2008.  In the past, such campaigns have had a significant impact on the political landscape, signaling the emergence of a new movement, a maturing constituency, a campaigning innovation or a future political star.  

In the case of Ron Paul, though, I'm not sure any of this will obtain.  There are a few reasons for this.

• No Coherent Coalition:  The Ron Paul campaign attracted a grab-bag of different agendas, from hardcore libertarians to alienated Republicans to Buchananite nationalists/cultural conservatives to anti-war liberals.   This is not a coalition that stays together. 

• The Protest Vote: that coalition was not brought together by a candidate with whom they agreed broadly.  It was brought together because, wherever he stood on other issues, Ron Paul pushed 1 or 2 passion buttons for each group.  Ron Paul was a protest vote.  However, protest voters tend to be bee-sting voters: they vote once, but then fall away.

• Independent Innovation: The tremendous fundraising and mobilizing success Paul's campaign experienced largely occurred independently.  The campaign was actually taken by surprise to a great extent.  To their credit, they embraced it.  However, while the idea of distributed activism is a valuable concept for other campaign's to understand and use, the actual grassroots energy is not something that a campaign apparatus can reproduce.  That is a perfect storm product, requiring a unique candidate and good timing.

• Candidate Flaws: Ron Paul was always a far worse candidate than his supporters wanted him to be.  In theory, he was a Republican who actively supported constitutionally limited government.  In practice, he was also partly a crank (North American Union, Gold Standard) who talked about smaller government, but had no real "here to there" plan for accomplishing it, and at least tacitly tolerated racism being put out under his name. 

But hey, he raised a lot of money and got a lot of support, right?  Well, sure.  And perhaps that's all he was really after in the first place. I had heard very early on that Ron Paul wasn't running for President to win, but to build his email list and bank account. Better to do that by running for President than letting Lew Rockwell ghostwrite racist tracts, I suppose.   But, as Jim Henley writes, Ron Paul didn't just fail to win, he failed to have an important impact.

Paul failed to win any states, to move the GOP debate in his direction, to accrue significant delegates or to leverage his fund-raising into a third-party run. And word is he’s staying quiet about endorsing an independent because he doesn’t want the Congressional GOP leadership to strip him of committee assignments come the fall. Paul accomplished the one thing he’s always been good at: using political appeals to get people to send money. I don’t feel freer.

The one potential exception to this is the largely under-the-radar effort by many Ron Paul supporters to join and take over local GOP organizations.  Whether the Right-of-center elements of the Paul coalition will be successful remains to be seen - bee sting voters might also be bee sting activists - but it looks now like this is the only area where the Paul campaign might possibly have a lasting impact on the Right.