Via ABC News 'Political Radar'
BC News' George Stephanopoulos Reports: Though often regarded as a longshot candidate for president, Republican Ron Paul tells ABC News that he has an impressive $2.4 million in cash on hand after raising an equal amount during the second quarter, putting him ahead of one-time Republican frontrunner John McCain, who reported this week he has only $2 million in the bank.
This is an interesting bit of news that in puts the insurgent Ron Paul candidacy in an interesting perspective. As all should know, the current GOP is a Frankenstein's monster of stitched together interest groups, with its three largest constituencies being the corporate right, the religious right, increasingly imperialistic militant nationalists, and anti-minority paleo-conservatives of the Pat Buchanan variety. Often ignored and, as often, gang-raped by this group are the Republican libertarians who, like their intellectual predecessor and political godfather Barry Goldwater, have an ideological belief that the state and state power are the biggest dangers to individual freedom.
These folks are Republican mostly due to historical rhetorical legacy of the Republican Party - little regulation, reduced spending, lower taxation and so on. That Republicans do not actually deliver these things goes without saying, but these people believe this and that's what is important. As such, the reality that is the Republican party often leaves them disenchanted and always out of the corridors of power in Washington DC.
Which, ironically, is very similar to the situation left-libertarian, socialist-Greens of the Ralph Nader variety often find themselves in - disenchanted and often sidelined in the Democratic party. In 2000, of course, we saw how disastrous the defection of even a small, relatively powerless sliver of the Democratic coalition to the Nader campaign could be. The question is would a Paul campaign do the same thing to the GOP if he were to run as an independent. If so, how can Democrats and liberals facilitate an independent Paul candidacy?