Day 2: No Response from Ron Paul Campaign on KKK Organizer

Yesterday I wrote about Randy Gray, the Midland County, Michigan coordinator for the Ron Paul campaign who is also a longstanding active and vocal organizer for the Knight's Party faction of the Ku Klux Klan. Before I published that diary I contacted the press office of the national Ron Paul campaign in Virginia, explained the situation, and asked if the campaign would like to release a statement on the matter. The press official I spoke to said he would look into it and get back to me. He never did.

Today I called the campaign again and spoke, I believe, to the same press official, who seemed slightly less interested in helping me than he did yesterday but said I'd get a call when he received a statement. The phone hasn't rung, and there's no trace of a statement on the campaign Web site. Meanwhile, Gray remains listed as the official contact for Midland County, Michigan on the Ron Paul campaign's Web site.

In fact, this matter is even more significant than I thought yesterday, when I pointed to pages referencing Gray on michigan4ronpaul.com, a site whose relationship to the national campaign committee is unclear. Today, however, I found a list of Michigan county contacts on the national campaign's own Web site. Some of the names differ between the two lists, but Randy Gray is on both of them. It is clear that Gray is and has been acting in an official capacity for the Paul campaign in Midland County.

I want to make it clear that the mere fact of a white supremacist serving as a county coordinator for Ron Paul does not, by itself, indict the candidate or his campaign organization. Modern presidential campaigns are large, decentralized organizations by necessity, and with more than 3000 counties in the United States it is unreasonable to expect a candidate or his core team to develop full dossiers on everyone who wants to volunteer their time for what may amount to little more than ringing doorbells and planting yard signs. Nor is the fact that a white supremacist would be attracted to the Ron Paul phenomenon by itself necessarily damning. People with fringe political beliefs often don't arrive at them by what we would consider rational thought processes, and if you probe deeply enough into any candidate's fan base you're likely to find at least a few kooks. Nevertheless, the frankly overwhelming support that Paul has received from the US neo-Nazi community (and his refusal to return a donation from one of America's highest-profile white supremacists), combined with the continually unfolding revelations about the racist, anti-gay content of Paul's newsletters in the 1990s, make this an issue the Paul campaign cannot credibly afford to ignore.

The opportunity for the Ron Paul campaign to claim that they are unaware of Gray's affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan is at an end; if nothing else, they are aware of it today because I informed them about it yesterday. I would expect any official statement from the campaign to cover the following points:

1. When did the campaign learn that Gray is an open and active white supremacist?

2. What action, if any, does the campaign intend to take regarding Gray and his position as Midland County coordinator?

3. What is the campaign's policy on allowing avowed white supremacists to serve in official coordinating roles with the campaign?

Until the campaign sees fit to provide answers to these questions, we continue to wait.

•  Tips accepted here

  Please also see Dave Neiwert's site for a spectacular post on Ron Paul with a ton of information I couldn't really get into here.

  by phenry on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 01:15:08 PM PDT

  •  Don't you know?

    Ron Paul has selective memory loss where he automatically forgets anything racist that he or his supporters put out. ]

    It's a serious medical condition that effects countless number of Republicans.  

    by smash artist on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 01:19:45 PM PDT

•  He's the best the GOP has.

  A bunch of white supremacists in South Carolina are trying to secede from the Union. They are joined by a bunch of ultra-liberal Vermonters who also want to secede. They support each other on the secession issue, but nothing else. Sometimes politics makes weird bedfellows.

  As for Paul, it only matters what policies Paul would (and could) implement. Unless you run into Kossacks who would vote for Paul ahead of a Democrat (I haven't seen too many), I don't see the use in harassing Ron Paul. Every candidate has some brand of nuts in support.

  Paul's a damn sight better than the rest of the GOP field. When I run across GOP acquaintances who would rather eat arsenic than vote Democrat, I urge them to vote for Ron Paul.

  by rhetoricus on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 01:28:06 PM PDT

  •  Shining the light

    on white supremacists.

    Everything knowable about Ron Paul has the added bonus of compiling a record against him. He holds a seat in the House as a Republican and he has Democratic opposition to his return to the House.

    The best GOP candidate is Ron Paul?

    Oy.

    by Over the Edge on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 02:21:01 PM PDT

    •  Every GOP candidate..

      has direct or indirect ties to racism. Virtually every one of their policies is somehow racist. They are also sexist, homophobic, and classist. I defy you to argue that any one of the GOP candidates is not a racist. For each one, I will find you a connection or a story that will horrify you.

      That said, we have a Constitution to worry about, remember? That thing that makes this country and this argument possible? Yeah. Well, every GOP candidate but Ron Paul is all set to finish off what is left of that document. That is my first concern. Eye on the big picture, you know?

      by rhetoricus on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 04:21:59 PM PDT

      •  Good points.

        It appears everyone is eager to toss out the US Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights, habeus corpus, excessive presidential powers and the topic of our unsustainable global empire once and for all. Once Paul's completely trashed and buried, these topics disappear entirely from the 2008 presidential campaign.

        Oh yea, and the war. It's allowed to continue to infinity too.

        by Housesitter on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 08:19:23 PM PDT

•  hey phenry

  you been following the Ron Paul threads at http://reason.com/...

  The blowback in libertarian circles is more interesting than here.

  by ben masel on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 02:25:55 PM PDT

  •  Oh yeah

    I've been stirring up crap over there a bit, because it needs to be stirred up.  Ron Paul is not fit to be President, not by a long shot.

    Read this:

    http://www.tnr.com/... (PDF)

    Especially the third paragraph from the bottom on page six.  Dial 1-800-RON-PAUL for the local insane asylum.

    I used to defend Ron Paul here.  After reading those eight pages of anti-governmental conspriarcies, racism, anti-gay comments, and general wackiness, I can't any more.

    For the complete list of newsletters and other documents, go here:

    http://www.tnr.com/...

    by Geotpf on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 02:38:35 PM PDT

    •  Doesn't look like he has even a long shot

      at the nomination. I note his Michigan total's barely better than the LP's full slate of House candidates garnered in '04, tho much better than Michael Badnarik polled there for President.

      (also not much better than my total as a libertarian Dem vs Herb Kohl in 2006, in a State with half the population.)

      by ben masel on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 02:53:39 PM PDT

      •  Nope

        He'll gather a few delegates, and he might win Alaska on Super Duper Tuesday (Alaska is the most libertarian state in the country; Ed Clark won 11.66% of the vote there in 1980 as the Libertarian Party's candidate, beating Andersen to come in third there, and Paul himself won 2.74% of the vote there in 1988 as the LP's candidate, or over five times as much as his national average of only 0.47%), but that's it.

        by Geotpf on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 03:06:00 PM PDT

•  Meh...

  As you said, I doubt presidential candidates vet every organizer so it's embarrassing, but not a big deal.

  The contribution flap, by itself, again, not a big deal and I think he handled it fairly well.  

  The newsletters, on the other hand, are a big deal and he handled the situation poorly. He should have brought up the issue himself, addressed and repudiated it.

  But his dismissal now contrasts with his past statements where his defense was that the quotes were 'taken out of context', it's obvious that even if he never held those views or has since repudiated them, there was a time in the Congressman's life when he or his staff courted fringe right-wing Nativist elements for publicity and money.

  by Dread972 on Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 03:04:20 PM PDT