Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire If you voted for Obama,

As much as it pains me to admit, TR's Bull Moose Party splitting the Republican party in 1912 gave us Woodrow Wilson and as a result a disastrous foreign policy, the great depression and 20 years of Democrats including the new deal. Arguably it set the stage for the President and the polices we are facing today.

Got to agree with GeoW,.... Ross Pee Rot gave us the Klintons...

I think the big problem is that none of the 3rd party candidates have been carismatic enough. It would be quite interesting to see the ensuing shake up if we saw a 3rd partier that was super popular.

A: Pathetic attempt to side-step the question

B: The election limits the practical "menu" to only two who have any chance at all of being elected. There's never (yet) any chance that a third-party or write-in candidate will prevail. �'est la vie. �'est la politique. �'est la r�alit�.

What 20 years? Wilson (D) went from 1912-1920, Harding (R) from 1920-22, Coolidge (R) 1922-28, Hoover (R) 1928-1932. The problem was the ideas promulgated by the Progressives, including Teddy Roosevelt, like the income tax, Federal Reserve, and popular election of Senators came about under TR and were pushed by Taft, and signed by Wilson, or ratified while he was President. FDR took over in 1932 and expanded on the "progressive" programs instituted by his Republican predecesser Hoover.

BTW, for all concerned, Ron Paul did not run as a third party candidate, he ran as a Republican.

True enough and I guess I got all my typing out on the "should I join the military post" What I should have said is more what you said, that the policies that Wilson adopted and pushed forth had an affect that went on and set the stage for the expansion of government for the next 20 years. You can certainly not say that Wilson followed anywhere close to a TR foreign policy/

I certainly do not believe TR would have pushed for those programs, income tax, managed money etc to have evolved to be what they are today. I also believe that it is a viable example of where a third party candidate led to a situation where he hurt what I believe was can easily be described as great heartache.

Ahh, from tiny acorns do mighty oaks grow. I look at the progressive ideas and early programs of TR as planting the seeds of our destruction. While I agree that TR personally was a good man, his pursuit of things such as the FDA and other progressive ideas have led us to where we are today.

Bullcrap. Clinton only won by 5% with Ross Perot taking nearly 19%. Clinton doesn't win without Perot not only splitting the Republican/Independent vote but stirring up the economic focus that summer. The 1991 recession was over before the election and one of the shallowest recessions in history.

Clinton in 1992
Wilson in 1912
And Al Franken doesn't win in Minnesota in 2008 without that idiot Barkley running third party and taking nearly all of the independent vote.

Imagine a race between Obama and Paul.

Obama was a completely empty suit, and the only reason he won was that McCain was an emptier suit. Paul would have put him away. (You'd have voted for Paul, right?) And of course there'd be no trillion-dollar bailout, and more than likely the Federal Reserve would be on the way out.

And no: I had nothing to do with the result.

I can't imagine why I would.

How would Ron Paul handle the problems that exist with our economy? I don't believe that he has any special insight or experience with corporate finance, tax policy, or national economic affairs. I don't believe that he had much to say about the economy during the campaign. So what economic experts is he listening to that no one else is? Although he seems to have an opinion on just about every topic that exists, his website reads more like a manifesto. Maybe that's why he isn't taken too seriously by most people.

Let's say for schits and giggles that instead of Obama, Ron's the president. How would he get anything accomplished? He isn't even a blip on the radar screen for Democrats and most of his own party (rightly or wrongly) think he's a tinfoil hat lunatic.

He's going to have a Democrat majority congress and about all he could do is veto anything they give him...resulting in plenty of watered down crappy legislation that ends up getting passed to over-ride him. So exactly, what would having Pres. Paul do for all of us?

If he has all the answers, then why doesn't he run for Gov of Texas...or for a higher profile job like Senator? No offense to the folks of Texas, but if he couldn't get elected in his home state, what makes him think that that he would have a chance at the national level?

No doubt in my mind Pee-rot ran to cause Bush's loss. IMHO It was a personal vendetta he has against the Bush's. Can I prove this? No, but believe it is truth.

You must not have been listening. It was almost all he talked about, because--being an Austrian economist--he knew this was coming, while everybody else was concentrating on the other candidates' positions on global warming and green energy and abortion and gay marriage.


von Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, Hazlitt, and the others. However, he is far more of an economic expert than anyone in the Obama administration, especially Ben Bernanke or Timothy Geithner.


Paul's objective was not to help the government get more accomplished: it was to tear huge bloody strips out of the government. He could have done much of that simply by vetoing legislation (most significantly including funding legislation), canceling executive orders, and pardoning tens of thousands of wrongfully imprisoned people.

And of course Baby Bush has made the office of the President so incredibly extra-Constitutionally powerful that he could undoubtedly have used it to rip even more guts out of the government.


Unlike McCain and Obama and Clinton, Paul wasn't interested in promising to do more for people. I always thought that was his best feature.


Couldn't get elected? What do you mean? He's been elected ten times.

OH...Barack....you disappoint me...to think Paul could have been elected...if you voted for "none of the above" you gave us Obama.....no getting around that.

I don't know why I am even bothering to respond because the Ron Paul that I saw during the campaign provided little more than comic relief. He had the microphone during a national debate and said absolutely nothing of value.

He must be the most misunderstood man in history.

You and I must have been watching different elections. Maybe it was the Austrian election you were focused on because I don't recall anyone spending much time discussing global warming, green energy, abortion, or gay marriage.

You appear to be under the impression that Paul was running for dictator rather than president. How exactly would he "tear huge bloody strips out of the government"? Barak, our system of politics is not a zero-sum-game, if you don't get your way, you can't take your ball and go home. Like it or not, our government is a system that was designed for compromise. How would Ron Paul fit into a system like that? Where would the legislation be coming from to put these changes into effect?

Just because he gets to sit in the big chair doesn't mean he runs the show. I ask again, where does his politicial support come from? If he can't get Republican support for his ideas now, why would they support him as president? Yeah, he can veto all he wants but eventually the majority Dems in congress will modify their legislation just enough to override that veto. There goes the bloody strips.

Maybe you missed my final point. I understand that his "comfort zone" is the House where he has been elected numerous times by what, 20,000 voters or so? My point was, if his ideas are so spot-on then why doesn't he seek out a more reasonable higher office than President so he can put his plans into motion? Why not gov or senator? Doesn't he have any interest at all in moving his ideas out of the theoretical? It seems like such a waste to mankind to keep a guy like him bottled up.

There's apparently no accounting for taste.


First, of course, there are executive orders, vetos, pardons, and the rank of Commander-in-Chief. However, in a world where Paul had been elected President, there would also be a significant amount of public backlash against rebellious politicians in both parties.


Funding bills are frequently fairly contentious. Requiring every funding bill to override a veto will wind up in at least some of them being significantly delayed, or even failing to pass. Government agencies without funding can either die abruptly, ignominiously, and destructively, or legislation to wind them up gracefully can be passed.


Once more: in a world where Paul had been elected President, he would have a fair amount of political support.


I didn't miss it. I just didn't address it, because it wasn't (or at least shouldn't have been) addressed to me. You need to ask Dr. Paul those questions. What I know is that he was running for President rather than governor, not why he was.

Don't let the door hit you in the azz.

That thought makes me smile too.

...Heck Ron Paul would have made us a far better president than Obama! At least he's a man who respects our constitution and bill of rights! I suppose that's why he's often characterized as a fellow with a tin foil hat..I do agree Ron Paul has been warning of this economic collapse for a good while now, and has spelled out common sense monetary changes to get our country back on a course of fiscal responsibility.