Missourinet

Ron Paul no longer a "contender"

Supporters of Congressman Ron Paul have deluged us with emails since Steve Walsh referred to him in a Saturday story as a “former” Republican candidate for President.

Some of the emails have been kindly reminders from True Believers that he is not a former candidate at all but is still in the race. Some of the emails have been more in the vein of harassment. Some of the emails have been tasteless, emotional, and insulting. Perhaps it would be good for the Paul supporters to consider whether a potential voter receiving the kinds of messages some of these emails contained would want to support him because of the company he apparently keeps.

So, okay, we will agree that Ron Paul is not a “former” candidate. He is a “wannabe” candidate whose supporters -- based on some of the emails we have received -- believe a meteor will fall on John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and others who have generated significantly more broad support throughout this nation than has Mr. Paul and therefore clear the way for him to become the GOP standard-bearer.

One email said that John McCain could drop dead before the Republican National Convention, a generally tasteless comment we thought. The same might be said of Ron Paul who is, after all, more than a year older than John McCain.

But let us not wish terminal misfortune on any of our candidates.

We’ve checked a couple of sources to see just how strong Ron Paul’s support has been through the primary/caucus experience so far. One website, realclearpolitics.com, says McCain has 1260 delegates locked up. Romney has 272. Huckabee has 270, and Ron Paul has a robust 24. CNN.com puts McCain at 1243 and Paul at 21.

We could quibble about whether someone with 21-24 votes (some Paul supporters claimed as of February 6 that Paul had all of 42 delegates) while someone else has the delegates needed to get a first-ballot nomination is still really a candidate. But that’s useless discussion for the Ron Paul loyalists. Ron Paul has not pulled out of the campaign, they remind us in various nice-to-nasty ways, and until he does, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Before, dear reader, you dismiss the Paul True Believers as delusional, please consider that they are in many ways what this country is all about.

The old cliché that “anybody can grow up to be President” is certainly not true. But anybody CAN grow up to RUN for President. And when they run they give a public voice to others. They might be kooks. They might be philosophers. They might be heretics. They might be in favor of white slavery, free love, a return to the monarchy, destruction of the First Amendment, the elimination of all things that are carbon-based (which would eliminate a lot of voters, come to think of it), oppose the eating of any plant or animal matter, want to return to the days of the open range, or want to deport all non-native people. Perhaps they want universal health insurance, reinstatement of the draft, and immediate nuking of any nation that disagrees with us.

That’s part of the magic of our nation. You and I can run for the nation’s highest office. We might be irrelevant in the grand plan for the eventual election of the next President of the United   States, but to those who are our True Believers, we are totally relevant and are the fulcrum on which they can apply the lever to move the world.

So to the Paul People we hereby concede your candidate is not a “former” candidate.

Is he a relevant candidate? To you, he is and we are never going to say you are not free to believe in a candidate and to passionately espouse that candidate’s causes although we wish some of you would show a little more maturity and rationality than you showed with your emails. .

Does the Missourinet consider him a contender? Sorry. No. Candidate? Yes, but not a contender. 

If a meteor does fall and if Mr. Paul becomes the Republican nominee, we’ll cover that process and the ensuing campaign as it affects Missourians.

But if he doesn’t make it, how many of the people who showed little or no class  and were pretty poor personal representatives of Ron Paul with their emails will send us a note of apology for their over-zealousness?

Probably not many. But that’s part of our political system, too.

Bob Priddy
News Director
The Missourinet

Johnny Has Some Fences to Mend

Sitting at my desk back in Jefferson City I have the chance to reflect on this past weekend's Republican Lincoln Days activities in Springfield. To say news was made this weekend would be an understatement. After all, Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder withdrew from the race for Governor - and Friday's surprise announcement was hard to top.

What was equally important, I think, was the announcement that was not made. I attended the weekend event with hopes of gauging GOP opinion on John McCain's all but certain clinch on the Republican presidential nomination.  Granted, the evidence is anecdotal, but if reaction to the returns from Saturday's primaries and caucuses are any indication of how Missouri Republicans feel about the maverick from Arizona, said Maverick has some fences to mend.

While people were enjoying themselves with tasty food and beverages during Saturday's socializing in the hospitality suites, folks were also paying attention to the TVs (tuned to Fox, of course) in each suite to follow the returns. Each time the numbers were updated and Mike Huckabee either gained ground on or moved further ahead of McCain, I saw smiles coming across the faces of some of the attendees.

I asked a number of these people, in a social "not for attribution" kind of way, how they feel about the prospects of John McCain at the top of the ticket in November. Some said they expect they'll vote for whomever wins the nomination. Others held back, saying they want to see who McCain chooses as his running mate ... and went so far as to suggest it had better be someone with conservative credentials.

Again ... it's only anecdotal ... but the sense I got from Missouri Republicans this weekend is that they don't really mind McCain being a maverick ... but they're pretty upset with a guy thinking that being a maverick means it's okay to poke members of your own team in their eyes with a stick.

- Steve Walsh

Thirty years of election coverage

The first election covered by The Missourinet was in 1976. News Director Bob Priddy orchestrated that first election night and every one since. Prior to The Missourinet, radio stations throughout the state focused on local races and relied on the wire services for news and numbers from throughout the state.

The Missourinet brought the sounds of election night from the state capitol and capaign headquarters throughout Missouri to the hometown audiences of our affiliates.

The technology has changed... and is changing... but insight and understanding Missourinet reporters bring to their election night coverage remains the focus of their reporting. Bob reflects on the past 30 years in this 10 minute video (40 meg).

Political blogging in Missouri

Political junkies can get their "political fix" from a new (early September?) blog on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website. P-D politics writer Jo Mannies is hosting (whatever that means) the blog "with contributions from Post-Dispatch reporters from St. Louis City Hall to Jefferson City and everywhere in between." Mannies also did a nice piece (Sunday) on political blogging in Missouri.

Rich Miller at the Capitol Fax Blog takes issue with "Illinois hasn't seen such growth":

"And if reporter Jo Mannies would have bothered to look at the list of blogs on either Larry's site or mine, Mannies would have seen a huge number of Illinois blogs, most of which have been started in the past 12 months."