It's an interesting journalistic conundrum: Should the MSM give Ron Paul "equal time," when they, Republicans, and everybody else knows Ron Paul is a joke candidate with a reckless ideology sprinkled with a few good ideas (like, end the trillion-dollar wars -- doy!) that even most libertarians are afraid of realizing 100% but don't care because they know their worldview never will accepted, and who doesn't have a shot in hell at getting nominated by the GOP, much less get elected President?
My first response is, No, the media should not give Ron Paul equal time. Contrary to what some people think, the media's job is not to act as human dictaphones relaying to us the talking points of famous and powerful people. Instead, journalists are charged with providing us facts in their proper context, with analysis where appropriate. And the facts that Ron Paul does well in early primaries, has a small but rabidly loyal fan base, and raises lots of small contributions on the Internet are not the whole story; his repeated pathetic failure to attract his own party's attention despite having lots of chances is the real story.
I digress, but: If Ron Paul is so hardcore about being a libertarian, why doesn't he run as a libertarian anymore? At a certain point, don't you get the message that your party doesn't want you? Ralph Nader got that message a long, long time ago. Is it because Ron Paul likes being a 13-time Congressman from Texas a little too much? Even worse than ignoring him though, his party took the Tea thing that Paul invented before there was astroturfing, and then not so politely told Little Ronnie to go back to the kids' table empty-handed. His party shamelessly stole from him, and then refused to give him any credit, and continued to roll its eyes at him like a lunatic. I mean, his son, who was elected to the Senate from Kentucky for the first time by watering down his dad's nutty speeches, instantly became more famous and influential than Ron. What a slap in the face that must have been for dad!....
Upon reflection, however, perhaps there is an important place for the perennial losers like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader, who, one could argue, act as the party's conscience, and who tug more electable candidates back in the correct ideological direction. Another way to spin this is, they give us voters a chance to see how far the front-runners are willing to go, how much they are willing to pander to the ideological fringes just to get nominated -- all the while sweating how they're going to take it all back in the general election when faced with moderate/independent voters who want bland oatmeal.
In the end it doesn't really matter. In any case, Ron Paul supporters will blame the lib'rul media for Paul's "invisibility cloak," -- the same invisibility cloak that liberal Ralph Nader wears, courtesy of the same lib'rul media -- although it was lib'rul comedian Jon Stewart who busted FOX and the MSM for going out of its way to make Paul the veritable "13th floor" of the GOP Hotel. Watch it:
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