David McElroy

It’s time for this week’s random musings that don’t fit anywhere else….

When other people are confused and frustrated about things that seem perfectly obvious to me, it makes me really frustrated, too. I felt that way Wednesday when I saw this article about Ron Paul’s strategists being confused about losing elections despite generating enthusiastic crowds at events.

If these guys are honestly confused, I wonder how experienced or competent they are. I knew months and months ago how this was going to play out for Paul. If anything, it’s gone even worse than I expected. I figured he’d slip up and win some small state or two, but that hasn’t even happened.

Here’s the truth. Ron Paul has the most enthusiastic core of supporters of any campaign today, bar none. If elections were won because of whose biggest supporters were most passionate, Paul would be elected. But that’s not how politics works. Most people aren’t going to go to anybody’s campaign event. They have busy lives and they honestly don’t care enough about the candidates. But when it’s time to vote, most of them are going to vote for a candidate whose ideas are mainstream and familiar to them.

Whether we like it or not, we are far outside the mainstream. The passion of a tiny group isn’t enough to change the fact that the masses recoil at our ideas. That’s just reality. Any political strategist should know this.

Remember the “corruption” trial that I told you about last week? I didn’t think there was any way these people should have been convicted, because what they were proven to be doing was just as legal as what anybody else in politics does. Well, the jury found all defendants not guilty on all charges Wednesday. I don’t necessarily support the people on trial — or vouch for their character — but the verdict was the right one. It’s a big blow to the out-of-control federal prosecutors who brought the case. They proved the old legal aphorism that a good prosecutor can successfully indict a ham sandwich.

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Going into Super Tuesday, Ron Paul hadn’t won a state yet, and his big hope was that he might win North Dakota. That’s right. North Dakota was his best shot.

Super Tuesday has come and gone. The other three GOP candidates all won at least a state. Even Newt Gingrich took a state, with a win in his home state of Georgia. But Paul is still waiting for a win, because Santorum took North Dakota. Is there anybody sane left who honestly thinks Paul has any chance?

For months, I’ve been hearing from my Ron Paul-supporting friends that he was “our last hope” and that if he didn’t win this year, we were doomed as a nation. Although that naive belief that Paul can win has died gradually among many of the people I know, they’re still left to face the reality of their own dire predictions. If you meant what you said — that Ron Paul was really your last hope for change through the electoral system — are you ready to join me in giving up on that system? Are you ready to start lookin at alternatives?

As some people have realized that Paul can’t win, their story has started changing a bit. Now they tell me the objective isn’t necessarily to win, but to win enough delegates to influence the Republican platform for the fall. Really? You’re telling me that you’ve poured all this money, time and work into an effort to influence a document that will promptly be forgotten — by the nominee and everyone else? Really?

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I hate paying the high prices that movie theatres charge for snacks and drinks, but it never crossed my mind to sue anyone about it. One spoiled brat in Michigan is so upset about being deprived of his right to inexpensive popcorn and Coke, though, that he’s filed a class action lawsuit demanding lower prices.

I would simply laugh at his idiocy and childishness, but we live in a culture that caters to these sorts of irrational whims. This lawsuit will probably be dismissed, but I can see the idea behind it succeeding in the future. How long will it be before some congressman introduces legislation to create the National Theatre Snack Food Board, with the power to regulate prices?

If you think that sounds absurd, you’re right. But remember that we live in a country where Congress has passed laws regulating the acceptable volume level of television commercials. Seriously. There’s a law about it. I’m not making this up.

Many people have come to believe that life should be set up to please them. They believe that other people have a responsibilitiy to cater to them. And when reality doesn’t deliver what they want, they expect governments to give it to them.

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