To simply say: “Ron Paul is not electable and Mitt Romney is” is to only parrot the talking point we have been fed by the media. The truth however is, Ron Paul was VERY electable. Someone just told you he wasn’t and you somehow believed it. How many times was Paul re-elected? He’s still holding office – and Romney and Palin are not.

Your points are valid, however, I think a more productive route would be to help in the political/constitutional education of Mr. Romney. He is head and shoulders ahead of Mr. Paul in terms of electability. And he has the religious understanding Mr. Paul does not.

Michael, this is why Romney is more accountable. He has more religious knowledge than Ron Paul ,but chooses to ignore it. Ron Paul has more love for and understanding of free agency in his little finger than Mitt has in his whole body and all without having the BOM. Mitt has the BOM but obviously has taken it lightly. He stands condemned because of the greater light he has received as a latter day saint.

I have to second most of Lonni’s observations. Mitt Romney has good stage presence but on most political philosophies that matter to me I find him severely lacking — not by missing education but by tragically flawed, calculated choice.

Romney decided to make national security the centerpiece of his Presidential campaign but consciously chose to sell-out to the PNAC / FPI crew whose sole purpose appears to be fearmongering and escalation of conflict in the middle east. He has years of high-level business experience but his political decisions regarding finance are bafflingly flawed beyond any reasonable expectation that it is a simple question of ‘lacking education’. When Mitt Romney proclaimed it wise to be more judicious in spending in every federal department *except* defense, for instance, I began to lose faith that Romney could transfer his business skills uncorrupted to public service. He railed on and on during the campaign about how ‘you can set *no* limits on the defense budget’ — as if there was no use at all examining military budgets for waste, fraud, etc. . . . as if politicians and bureaucrats were infallible in their careful use of defense funds to make sure our servicemen and women were always well equipped and defended . . . and as if it were some kind of unforgivable blasphemy to question the propriety of perpetual wars beyond any limits of actually being able to finance them.

Romney seems full of empty, unsupportable postures like that which are calculated to win votes amongst a shallow and casual electorate.

As for general electability, however, you’ll notice that Romney was not expected to win re-election as governor while Ron Paul keeps getting re-elected to U.S. Congress election after election. Perhaps Romney’s constituents began to see through his ephemeral posturings while Paul’s constituents found actual, thoughtful convictions behind each position.

Connor, you’re a man after my own heart! Back at the time you posted this I was arguing these same points. Primarily that Ron Paul is a statesman worthy of our attention, promotion, and votes; that Romney is a politician who will say and do whatever he thinks will get him elected; and that voting your conscience is superior to supporting the lesser of two evils.

First, the reasons I have never supported Mitt Romney (and I gave him a fair chance) is because I found myself nodding my head to 90% of the things he said but I also found myself shaking my head at 90% of the things he’s done. This proves that he’s either inconsistent, dishonest, or both. Either way, as you pointed out, he seemed to care more about promoting himself to power than he did about liberty, the Constitution, and the American people.

I’ve been paying close attention to Ron Paul for about five years now and he consistently has proven himself to be a true statesman, a friend to liberty.

As I read through the first 15 or so comments I noticed a lot of people caring more about which party has a chance of winning than what principles are correct and which candidate will support those principles. I can (kind of) understand why some people would ignore John Quincy Adam’s quote on voting for principle but I have a harder time understanding why so many members conveniently ignore Hyrum Smith and Joseph Smith. Just so no member can brush off their statements as mere opinion or outdated advice, let’s see you LDS people ignore what the Lord said in D&C 98:10(4-11),

Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.

Does the candidate you voted for in the past election pass the Lord’s criteria for supporting a person in secular office? Are they good, honest, and wise? If they weren’t, the Lord points out that your decision “cometh of evil”. Repent.

Jay

http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SourceMaterialsCongressionalAction/H_Con_Res_322.pdf

I think it is obvious that the Congress doesn’t seek after a fair peace in the middle east, but a free ticket for Israel to roll over whoever they please.

March 5, 2008 Congressman Ron Paul states – Madam Speaker: I rise in opposition to H. Res. 951. As one who is consistently against war and violence, I obviously do not support the firing of rockets indiscriminately into civilian populations. I believe it is appalling that Palestinians are firing rockets that harm innocent Israelis, just as I believe it is appalling that Israel fires missiles into Palestinian areas where children and other non-combatants are killed and injured.

Unfortunately, legislation such as this is more likely to perpetuate violence in the Middle East than contribute to its abatement. It is our continued involvement and intervention – particularly when it appears to be one-sided – that reduces the incentive for opposing sides to reach a lasting peace agreement.

Additionally, this bill will continue the march toward war with Iran and Syria , as it contains provocative language targeting these countries. The legislation oversimplifies the Israel/Palestine conflict and the larger unrest in the Middle East by simply pointing the finger at Iran and Syria . This is another piece in a steady series of legislation passed in the House that intensifies enmity between the United States and Iran and Syria . My colleagues will recall that we saw a similar steady stream of provocative legislation against Iraq in the years before the US attack on that country.

I strongly believe that we must cease making proclamations involving conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States . We incur the wrath of those who feel slighted while doing very little to slow or stop the violence.

“New passages include one saying that “those responsible for launching rocket attacks against Israel routinely embed their production facilities and launch sites amongst the Palestinian civilian population, utilizing them as human shields” and “the inadvertent inflicting of civilian casualties as a result of defensive military operations aimed at military targets, while deeply regrettable, is not at all morally equivalent to the deliberate targeting of civilian populations as practiced by Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups.”

More than 100 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed since last Wednesday, when Hamas and its allies intensified rocket attacks on Israel’s south and Israel retaliated. Palestinians say most of their casualties are civilians, while Israelis say most of them are combatants.

The more I study the conflict there, the more I question the morality of our ingrained “duty” to further the pro-Israeli propaganda. I certainly don’t equate the secular Jewish state with the scriptural “House of Israel”. A secular Jewish state can play a role in the prophesied “literal gathering of Israel” but that doesn’t mean that it is auto-magically righteous and 100% moral. Mormons aren’t the only ones that seem to get caught up in this. Evangelicals often buy into the “Children of Israel”=”God’s People” therefore no Arab can do right (‘any action is probably terrorist in nature’) and every Jew is imbued with unerring right. But most troubling are the much larger numbers of secularly amoral/immoral politicians and lobbyists push policies that take advantage of the genuinely “religious” [and often uninformed] populace.

I’ve got similar doubts about what is being painted as Venezuelan agression against Columbia right now. [Columbia aggressively invaded Ecuador and killed "rebels" there supposedly to stop "potential terrorists" and when Venezuela spoke out against Columbia's actions, President Bush stepped up the rhetoric against Venezeula.] Maybe Columbia is right and Venezuela and Ecuador are wrong but there are so many US troops in Columbia and the Bush administration has such open hostility to barriers to US corporate expansion in Venezuela that it muddies the picture.

The idea that our US legislators are the perfect arbiters of black/white morality in far-flung areas of the world and that they each possess clear, informed vision with no inappropriate influence-peddling or ulterior motives is one that I would honestly question. Too often “resolutions” become part of the problem and not the solutions.

I rise in opposition to this resolution, which I sincerely believe will do more harm than good.

I do agree with the resolution’s condemnation of violence. But I am convinced that when we get involved in foreign conflicts and send strong messages, such as this resolution will, it ends up expanding the war rather than diminishing the conflict, and that ultimately comes back to haunt us.

Another:

I rise in strong opposition to this ill-conceived and ill-timed legislation. Let’s not fool ourselves: this concurrent resolution leads us down the road to war against Iran. It creates a precedent for future escalation, as did similar legislation endorsing “regime change” in Iraq back in 1998.

Another:

Mr. Speaker, I rise with great concerns over this legislation – both over its content and what it represents. First, I think it is absurd that the United States Congress believes it has the responsibility and authority to rectify the inappropriate statements of individuals in foreign countries. Have we moved beyond meddling in the internal affairs of foreign countries – as bad as that is – to even meddling in the very thoughts and words of foreign leaders and citizens? Is it the obligation of the United States Congress to correct the “wrong thoughts” of others that have nothing to do with the United States? Additionally, is it our place to demand that other sovereign states, such as the members of the European Union, react as we say they must to certain international events?

Examples abound.