First of all, Ron Paul has significant power in congress. He is a member of two important committees and was instrumental, as a recent example, in strengthening the auditing standards for the Federal Reserve. He also has significant ideological influence on the Republican party, whether they like it or not. The rhetoric of the tea party movement was in many ways a direct attempt to co-opt Paul's support. He has used this power in near perfect accordance with his principles, stood against reckless war, attacks on civil liberties, favoritism for Wall St. and special interests, and economic plunder.
There have been plenty of opportunities for Paul to sell out, as there are for every successful politician, and he has rejected these opportunities at every turn. Contrast this with Obama's record: a supporter of the patriot act from the beginning, a friend of Wall Street, a believer in empire, in favor of suspension of habeas corpus for American citizens, in favor of the drug war, tolerant of illegal spying on citizens, tolerant of torture. Obama has broken promises and sold out the American people time and time again. It seems pretty clear who has the better batting average.
Paul is far from perfect, but the only alternative at this point is the status quo or worse for the next four years, and believing in that is a lot more insane and dangerous than any of Paul's most controversial beliefs. In fact, when you look pragmatically at the scope of what Paul would actually be capable of as president, you see that he could only really affect policy in the moderate and generally popular portions of his platform--ending permanent war, ending the drug war, vetoes on overspending. His more 'fringe' positions are well beyond the purview of the executive branch, and his principles explicitly preclude him from overstepping those bounds.
Ron Paul is to be commended for amending auditing standards for the Federal Reserve. However, he still hasn't had an important policy position as compared to his competitors for the presidency (excepting Bachmann). This is not a slight, but it should be acknowledged.
Now, I agree that he has had substantial power rhetorically. He has people who are passionate about what he says; his elucidations and opinions have influenced them, raised money, started conversations, and affected the political agenda. That is why it is disappointing that the very little power he has has been used inappropriately in certain instances. If he hired awful ghostwriters who spread stupidly racist material because he wasn't minding the store, then that is not a good sign that he has successfully managed the one area where he did have meaningful power.
Separately: I think you can critique Obama without mentioning things which seem to me untrue or at least misleading, which I think warrant correction:
- Obama has never (I believe) indicated that he's in favor of suspending habeas for U.S. citizens. There's misinformation around that NDAA does this; it does not. If you're thinking of something else, citation please.
- The U.S. torture debate has mostly revolved around waterboarding and unauthorized treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, etc. -- none of these are known to have happened under Obama. Some people believe that the Army Field Manual enables other forms of torture; Obama ordered a full review and asked for all torture to be taken out; if you think he missed things, that's a complex judgement call, not a simple issue.
- On several other fronts, like the drug war, Wall Street, etc., Obama has in fact applied the policies he stated--I'm not sure what makes you think he's broken promises or compromised his sincere beliefs in any of these areas. He's not a libertarian (except maybe in comparison to H. Clinton).
"Batting average" is a helpful term to use, but I think you're not using the right denominator: Paul hasn't been up the plate many times, whereas Obama, Gingrich, Romney, even Santorum have had a lot more opportunities to either accomplish something or screw up.
By the way, I'm not arguing generally that you should vote for Obama instead of Paul or whatever. But I am defending this newsletter "scandal" as a still relevant datapoint on Ron Paul. Not definitive, but relevant.
There have been plenty of opportunities for Paul to sell out, as there are for every successful politician, and he has rejected these opportunities at every turn. Contrast this with Obama's record: a supporter of the patriot act from the beginning, a friend of Wall Street, a believer in empire, in favor of suspension of habeas corpus for American citizens, in favor of the drug war, tolerant of illegal spying on citizens, tolerant of torture. Obama has broken promises and sold out the American people time and time again. It seems pretty clear who has the better batting average.
Paul is far from perfect, but the only alternative at this point is the status quo or worse for the next four years, and believing in that is a lot more insane and dangerous than any of Paul's most controversial beliefs. In fact, when you look pragmatically at the scope of what Paul would actually be capable of as president, you see that he could only really affect policy in the moderate and generally popular portions of his platform--ending permanent war, ending the drug war, vetoes on overspending. His more 'fringe' positions are well beyond the purview of the executive branch, and his principles explicitly preclude him from overstepping those bounds.