Three Cheers for Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel; They Are What Democracy and Elections Are All About

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, USPolitics.einnews.com

June 1, 2007

Ron Paul has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than a generation without creating much of a ripple. Until very recently, when he decided to run for president, few outside of his Texas congressional district had ever heard his name. Within the Congress itself he is known as "Doctor No." Doctor, because he is, in fact, a medical doctor. And No, because that's how he invariably votes.

Ron Paul gets elected to Congress as a Republican, but he's really a Libertarian. Paul advocates a limited role for the federal government, low taxes, free markets, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and a return to the gold standard. In all his years in Congress Paul never has voted to raise taxes or congressional pay, and refuses to participate in the congressional pension system. He's also voted against pretty much every social initiative that has hit the House floor in the past 25 years.

A typical conservative, you might say. And you would be right, except for this: he also voted against giving President Bush authority to invade Iraq. He voted against the Patriot Act. He voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006. And he has a more consistent record of resisting White House foreign policy adventures and personal freedom-compromising initiatives than most Democrats.

Here's something else interesting about Ron Paul. He believes U.S. military and diplomatic aggressiveness in the Middle East is responsible for the whirlwind we are reaping there now. He doesn't so much blame the Arab with the rifle shooting at U.S. soldiers and marines as he does the U.S. leaders who put those soldiers and marines on Arab soil.

Here's something else interesting. It turns out that a lot of Americans agree with Paul. So many that in the race for the Republican nomination for President, Sportsbook.com of Las Vegas now offers odds of 15-1 that Paul may emerge as the nominee. A few weeks ago, before millions of Americans saw Paul in the GOP presidential debate, the odds were 200-1.

In 2003 Howard Dean emerged from what the media loves to label "the bottom tier" of candidates to become the Democratic front-runner. We were reminded then, as Ron Paul and a few other presidential candidates are reminding us now, why we have election campaigns and why democracy is so wonderful.

Whether you agree with Ron Paul or not, he has suddenly given voice to what a lot of Americans are thinking. The media may consider Ron Paul unworthy of coverage because he hasn't raised tens of millions of dollars or secured powerful endorsements. But clearly what Paul represents has a constituency, and one of the reasons we elect rather than anoint our leaders is to let points of view compete.

Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo is filling the same role. At a Lincoln Day dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, Tancredo drew more applause than eight other presidential candidates by giving a podium-thumping speech on what he sees as the dangers of current and proposed immigration policy to the American way of life. Tancredo is concerned about the erosion of American identity in the face of immigration from Mexico and Central and Latin American countries. He's not alone in that view, and by talking about it forcefully Tancredo is helping to shape a very important debate.

On the Democratic side of the presidential race, Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate who is calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney over the Iraq War and he's the only candidate who has called for a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care system. These are two hot wire issues that should not to be homogenized by conventional media reporting and play-it-safe politics. Kucinich has elevated these points of view from the editing floor and forced all of us to discuss them.

Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel, much to the surprise of most of the political establishment, is stirring Democratic grass roots support with his anti-intervention, anti-nuclear plain speaking. After the South Carolina debate, Mike Gravel was the 15th most popular search on the Internet. On Digg.com, where users post links to articles they think others should read, the two top political items recently were about Mike Gravel.

What does this tell us? It says there are a great many Americans who agree with Gravel that militarily and diplomatically the U.S. is badly off course, and that changes require a leader who will make dramatic, not incremental course corrections.

Gravel, Kucinich, Tancredo, Paul. Not one of them is likely to win his respective party nomination. But each of them is doing something very important. They are voicing positions and perspectives not commonly heard in polite political debate, and raising issues that vary markedly from where most media and political professionals see the "center." That's what Howard Dean did in 2003. Once the other candidates saw the mass following Dean attracted, their positions adapted and the "mainstream" moved to a more aggressive posture on Iraq and other issues.

This is the way politics in a democracy is supposed to work. And it usually does, when we don't build financial and communications hurdles so high that they dam up the true currents of public opinion.

Joe Rothstein, editor of US Politics Today, is a former daily newspaper editor and long-time national political strategist based in Washington, D.C.

See all previous articles by Joe Rothstein here.