In chess, a game is often won or lost long before it’s officially over. When that tide turns, it may take any number of moves to work out the impact, but the final result is inevitable. In other words, the battle has already been won, even though the doomed opponent may not even see it.
I went to see Ron Paul speak at UCLA last night. Few in attendance (or elsewhere) believe that Paul can win the Republican nomination, yet the 5,800-seat stadium was full, with many climbing nearby trees just to catch a glimpse. I can bear witness to the fact that Paul’s supporters are continuing to show up in larger numbers than any of the leading candidates. Including Paul’s Tuesday stop in Chico, more than 12,000 folks came out to support Ron Paul in the last two days.
On April 5, 2012, the day after setting two attendance records in a row, the only mention of Ron Paul on the Fox News site is an article (1) titled “Where’s Ron Paul? Campaign slows…” The article flat-out lies by claiming that “the Ron Paul ‘revolution’ has gotten awfully quiet,” it “appears to be winding down on the trail,” and that “So far this month, [Paul’s] held just one [campaign event].” The sham of an article then poses this question: Why doesn’t Ron Paul quit?
Near the end of Paul’s 50-minute, no-notes speech, last night Paul provided the answer: Ron Paul and his supporters believe that the ideas they hold cannot be stopped because their “time has finally come.” As fellow Ron Paul champion Jesse Chapman put it, “Ron Paul can’t lose. He’s already won. He has won the battle of ideas.” (2) You see, Paul understands what few politicians understand these days: good ideas are more powerful than people. Rather than argue that he is better than President Obama or other politicians, Paul focuses his campaign on principles and ideas that are more powerful than himself.
If Paul, Chapman and the other thousands are correct, Paul’s campaign is simply the next move in the process of playing this game out to its inevitable conclusion. So I pose a better question: Why quit a game when you’re winning?
1 - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/04/paul-campaign-making-fewer-stops-but-still-rolling
2 - http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-los-angeles/massive-crowd-shows-up-to-see-ron-paul-los-angeles
Good post. I am however, curious as to how it has been measured, and or tested, to reach the conclusion that Dr. Paul's principal's and idea's time has come?
ReplyDeleteGreat question! I've come to the same conclusion and it's based on the fact that every alternative has run its course. In other words, the time for Dr. Paul's ideas has come because all other systems have finally been tried and failed. Dr. Paul's arguments are the same as they were 20 years ago, but today they are much more convincing due, in large part, to their explanatory and predictive power. For example, Dr. Paul is the only politician in Washington who predicted the economic meltdown, can explain why it happened and can offer a solution that doesn't involve making the same mistakes that caused it. This is why Dr. Paul's supporters have grown exponentially in recent years and why, now more than ever, other intellectuals and politicians are adopting Dr. Paul's ideas.
ReplyDelete