Why Not?

‘You can’t convict Lord Black for being rich’ Why not. He got his ill gotten wealth like all other wealthy folks from theft or inheritance, which is just theft from long ago. And his hero is that other Chicagoan famous for being wealthy through crime; Al Capone

Also See:


Conrad Black

Criminal Capitalism

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A Deal Is A Deal

Defying the Harpocrites expectations of pulling a fast one over the Atlantic Accord expecting it to all pass by due to the infamous culture of defeat, today their anti-equalization budget faces opposition in the Senate from none other than the Conservative voice of Atlantic Canada; John Crosby. And he is not in favour of the Harpocrites budget. Nope not by a long shot.

Former East Coast Tory godfather John Crosbie sent two me­mos to Prime Minister Stephen Har­per in a vain attempt to convince him to honour the 2005 offshore accords be­tween Ottawa and Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The memos provide a strong argu­ment in support of those, like Nova Scotia Tory MP Bill Casey, who argue that Mr. Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have violated the ac­cords with the March budget.

Certainly, few people know more about the issue than Mr. Crosbie, who was instrumental in negotiating the 1980s deals under which the Conserva­tives under Brian Mulroney ceded con­trol of offshore petroleum to Nova Sco­tia and Newfoundland.

“The authors of the Atlantic council report concluded that this government's budget ‘violates the letter and the spirit of the accords,’" said Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff. “Even former Conservative Minister of Finance John Crosby said ‘they're changing the equalization formula so that it will cancel out the principles of the accord.’

Meanwhile the rage spreads as more Atlantic provinces realize the Tories have created a two tier form of equalization.

While the new equalization formula will provide New Brunswick with a $68-million increase in revenue for the first two years, the province will receive, from 2009 through 2020, a stunning $1.1-billion less than it would have under the existing framework. While Mr. Harper talks about fixing equalization, not only has he broken his promise to honour the Atlantic Accord in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, but he also has created two classes of equalization.

Acadia University’s Paul Hobson and Memorial’s Wade Locke have done better than running to court. In a study released last week, they ran the numbers on the two equalization options presented in the budget – the old "fixed framework" that uses a five-province standard and the new "O’Brien formula" that upgrades to a 10-province standard, excludes some resource revenues and introduces a cap to claw back equalization if resource revenues push a have-not province above Ontario’s theoretical taxing capacity.

The bottom line: The new system is a financial bust for all four Atlantic provinces over the next 13 years, whether or not they have resource accords with Ottawa.

Jim Bickerton of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish believes the political battle surrounding the federal budget underscores a lack of understanding between the federal Conservative government and Atlantic Canada.

Bickerton says any attempt by Ottawa to portray the new equalization deal contained in the recent federal budget as a "fair and generous offer" for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland misses the point about why they were given offshore agreements in the first place.

"The symbolism of this went much deeper than simply just a broken agreement," he says.

Agreements signed in 2005 with Paul Martin’s Liberal government protected the two provinces’ offshore oil and gas revenues from federal equalization clawbacks. After a long and at times dramatic fight dubbed the "Campaign for Fairness," the deals were heralded as key economic development tools.

The current equalization offer forces the provinces to choose between a new formula or their offshore deals, a choice both fear could cost them millions of dollars over the long term.

"The broken trust was that the federal government had more or less admitted that this was the region’s one great opportunity to reverse its historic subordinate position within the federation and that it was willing to support them in doing that," says Bickerton.

Locke's work on equalization and the Atlantic Accord have been followed closely in political circles.

This spring, when he determined that Newfoundland and Labrador would actually benefit from the new equalization formula, federal Conservatives championed his work.

However, Locke dramatically revised his analysis when he obtained full details from the federal Finance Department on how the new equalization formula will work.

He found that Newfoundland and Labrador will not only lose money as compared to the status quo, but the province would have received about $11 billion more over the next 13 years had Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintained a 2006 pledge on equalization.

As an Albertan I empathize with the Maritimes. We were there once, in the thirties, despite our coal reserves, it was not enough to keep us afloat as the feds took the resource monies and gave us back a smidgen called equalization.

It was when we struck oil, and had the oil barons take over the State that we declared our constitutional autonomy through provincial control of our natural resources.

Alberta today pays into the equalization payments to other provinces. Not just Ontario. Which irks me no end when the Conservatives talk about capping equalization at the Ontario level. What about the Alberta level, well they don't want to mention Alberta since that might wake up the sleeping giant which hates Ottawa.

Yep you see the broken promise to Atlantic Canada goes along with a letter sent to Saskatchewan and Alberta promising to respect provincial resource rights and not include them in the equalization formula. Signed by the Grande Fromage his-self.

So once the Atlantic Accord was signed it set the conditions for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to benefit from their offshore resources just like Alberta and Saskatchewan can from their inland resources.

Those resources being oil and gas. Which seem to be unique when it comes to the federal government. Unlike say mining, or hydro-electric power, two resources Ontario and Quebec have but are never considered part of the equalization formula, past or present.

The federal state controls offshore oil and gas reserves in a paternalistic fashion for the good of the provinces where they are. They still control the offshore resources 'in trust' for Nunavut, until such time as that 'territory' actually becomes a province.

Having to give up such a lucrative source of funds, is hard to do. And the Liberals were forced into expanding the Atlantic Accord originally signed by the Mulroney Conservatives. In doing so they gave the Atlantic provinces their just due.

The Harpocrite Conservative opposition demanded the Martin government honour 'their commitment' made during the 2004 election. A promise Harper went on to reiterate in the 2006 election.

But he broke that promise, by tying the provincial rights to resource revenues to equalization payments, a bit of sugar for two years and then claw backs. Albertans would never stand for this kind of treatment, regardless of the party in power in Ottawa.

And the Atlantic premiers as well as Lorne Calvert are correct in admonishing Albertans that Harpers betrayal bodes ill for us as well. Unfortunately it has fallen on deaf ears since the Calgary School Conservatives dominate both the Federal party and Stelmach's regime in Alberta.

It's a matter of fairness. The Maritimes could well become self sufficient with their oil revenues. And then and only then should equalization payments end, as they have with the former have not province of Alberta.

Equalization & The Atlantic Accord - 'A Deal is A Deal' Petition

Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald is encouraging all Nova Scotians and all Canadians to send a strong and united message to Ottawa by signing a petition on Nova Scotia's website.

www.gov.ns.ca/accord

The only problem with the petition is there is no space to put your city or province. So I used the space for phone number (optional).




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Democracy Israeli Style

Not satisfied with the government elected by the Palestinian people, well simply refuse to fund it and allow for internecine conflicts until your side wins or declares itself a winner.

Which is just what Israel has done, in recognizing the Fatah/Abbas Government in the West Bank. Thus signaling the U.S., Canada and Europe that it is the government they want funded.

In fact it was the only government they ever wanted, and the Palestinians and democracy can be ignored.

Bush and Olmert seek to prop up Abbas

Analysis: Gaza sanctions may increase tension

Gazans Adjust to Power Shift as New Rulers Revel in Their Victory

Analysis: Limits of Democracy Talk

“Israel, Hamaza, and the Fatah Bank: A Three State Solution?

See:

Israel


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Paris Discovers Jesus In Jail

Jail in Amerika is the greatest source of Christian conversion for celebrities and other criminals.

More so than churches, TV Evangelism or even traveling revivalist sideshows.

And now we have another celebrity who goes to jail and discovers god. Paris Hilton goes to jail in LA where she discovers Jesus. As if that is a surprise. There are thousands of them in jail in LA county.

Better yet before her conversion there was a miracle of biblical proportions in the LA jail.

Because Paris Hilton was let out of jail, when this team of Auxiliary women from the Gideons International went in to the jail, they were able to hand out exactly the number of bibles they had gathered and because Paris was not in jail at that time, the floor that she would've been on — if she had been there — was left open for the women to do their bible distribution.

So because Paris was not in jail (for reasons apparently only God knew at the time) all the women inmates on Paris's floor received a copy of a Gideon bible.

Latinos who suffer, like Amerika's blacks, a race war against them by the Law and Order right, get why jail is no place for conversion.

Angel Perez says it's important his children know that jail is a dreadful and dangerous place, not one he wants them to see - not even on a visit.

The rate of imprisonment for Latinos is "about 50 percent higher than it should be," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington think tank on criminal justice policy.

"Nationally, 20 percent of the U.S. prison population is Latino. In society, however, Latinos represent 13 percent of the population," Mauer said.

The rate of imprisonment of celebrities in LA county in a year is far less than an average weekend round up of Latino and African Americans.

And the majority of them are Christians. As you can tell from their tattoos.



See:

Pain In The Butt

Anna Nicole Smith and Barbara Amiel

Ben Stein's Truth

Britney Needs a Liberal

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Lord Black No Robin Hood

Black accused of stealing, 'plain and simple'

From the little people; shareholders. Those whom Lady Black dismisses with the aplomb of Marie Antoinette.

The prosecution painted Conrad Black and his co-accused as fraudsters who systematically committed theft from Hollinger International shareholders.

The accused took a "slice of their company's profits" and "created a phony paper trail to make their actions appear legitimate

"We are here because five men systematically stole over US$60 million from the shareholders of Hollinger International."

"Conrad Black was paying himself not to compete with himself. It's ridiculous."

Also See:


Conrad Black

Criminal Capitalism

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God Is Pro Abortion

Since all acts of Nature are acts of God it is clear that God is pro abortion.

A lightning strike that hit seven people over the weekend in Alberta killed a 26-year-old man and his unborn baby.

because every abortion snuffs out the life of a human being, the most vulnerable human being among us, the unborn child

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Socialism Now!

This little online poll in the Globe and Mail has the Blogging Tories here and here all verklempt. And no wonder. It shows that a good idea is one whose time is yet to come. And as usual I will provide the following caveat; socialism is NOT state-capitalism.

Is socialism still a viable political alternative for the major industrial nations?

Yes

(61%) 7451 votes

No

(39%) 4789 votes

Total votes: 12240

Socialism, in short, would not come about because a handful of daydreamers had wished for it, or because pious moralists had urged it, but because the unavoidable breakdown of the capitalist system would force the turn to socialism upon those societies that, prior to this breakdown, had been organized along capitalist lines.

Thus, Kautsky says: "Socialism, that is, general welfare within modern civilization, becomes possible only through the great development of productive forces that capitalism brings, through the enormous riches that it creates and that are concentrated in the hands of the capitalist class. A state that has squandered these riches through a senseless policy, perhaps an unsuccessful war, offers from the outset no favorable point of departure for the quickest diffusion of welfare in all classes."

See: Radical Capitalists Not So Radical


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How The MacDonald Commission Changed Canada

With the Conservative governments announcement of further bi-lateral free trade agreements, we should return to the roots of this policy. One that was developed by the Liberals over twenty years ago. Credit where credit is due, the Liberals set the agenda for the development of Free Trade which the Conservatives under Mulroney and Harper have merely inherited. Proving once again the axiom, Liberal, Tory same old story.

Tracing the roots of Canada’s contemporary involvement in North American free trade back to the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada in 1985 – also known as the Macdonald Commission – Gregory J. Inwood offers a critical examination of the commission and how its findings affected Canada’s political and economic landscape, including its present-day reverberations.

In this case the recommendations that led to the reinvention of the Liberal government as a Neo-Liberal government began with the Commission they set up under Donald MacDonald.

Macdonald represented the Toronto-Rosedale riding for 16 years as a federal member of parliament. He served nine years as cabinet minister in portfolios such as national defence, finance and energy, mines and resources. He was high commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom from 1988 to 1991, and from 1982 to 1985, he chaired the Royal Commission on the Economic Development Prospects for Canada (known as the Macdonald Commission).

What the Liberals didn't do was follow the MacDonald Commission recommendations on UI/EI.

Moreover, instead of following the Commission’s recommendation for increasing federal contributions to UI during recessionary periods, the government eliminated all contributions to the program by 1990. And there is no evidence that the government has seriously considered proposals made by the Commission and others for experience-rating the program’s financing.

The intensity rule and benefit clawback of 1996 were sold as “worker-side experience rating” (see Nakamura and Diewert (2000)), but they proved as politically unpalatable as employer-side experience rating of premiums. Indeed, since the mid-1990s and continuing today, the feds’ most notable attitude toward EI is that the program is a handy, covert source of net funds for other governmental purposes.

Nor did they follow the Commissions recommendations for a Guaranteed Annual Income.

The Universal Income Security Program (UISP) was the Commission’s other major recommendation for reforming income security. In essence, the UISP was a guaranteed income scheme that would have replaced other programs such as the Guaranteed Income Supplement, Family Allowances, the refundable child tax credit, child and marital tax exemptions, federal social housing programs, federal transfers to the provinces for Social Assistance (SA), and the income support functions of UI. UISP payments were to be made on an income-tested basis, with a tax-back rate of 20 percent applied to all income in addition to the normal personal income tax rates. The Report stated, “The UISP seems to Commissioners to be the essential building block for social security programs in the twenty-first century.

Instead they applied a neo-liberal approach of tax credits, which increased the taxable income of those who received government supplements. So in effect the working poor, paid for a benefit they received from the government. The Federal government let the provinces off the hook by paying their share, and allowing them to cut Social Assistance on the promise that the savings would go back into broad based public programs for the working poor.

The reality was a claw back of provincial benefits, real cash in your pocket, for a credit chit from the Feds, your tax dollars at work. The ensuing benefit not being taxed, meant that the working poor moved up the income tax scale. Not unlike the current Conservative Child benefit; their so called universal child care program.

Second, beginning in 1998 the National Child Benefit (NCB) System subsumed the CTB and replaced its earnings-related benefit with a substantial cash supplement for lower income households with children. Under agreements with the federal government, most provincial governments reduced their SA benefit rates for children by amounts equivalent to the NCB supplement. Again, this scheme pursued a Commission goal of reducing the disincentives for welfare beneficiaries to seek or return to work. These changes also reduced the break-even
income levels for welfare beneficiaries, though the provinces have not reduced phase-out rates for their own benefits. The “reinvestment” of provincial savings from reduced SA cash benefits into in-kind benefits for the working poor and welfare beneficiaries promoted the lowering of the welfare wall, but the benefit phase-outs further aggravated disincentives for the working poor.

Despite the visible positives from the NCB initiative, the scheme also mirrored the
hidden deficiencies of the Commission’s UISP scheme. That is, the NCB supplement phase-out sharply raised the effective marginal tax rates faced by many working poor and near-poor families. The NCB scheme did reduce the “welfare wall” but simultaneously erected a higher “success wall” keeping the working poor and near-poor from advancing to higher earnings.

What made the MacDonald Commission unique was the near unanimty of the political economists who agreed that Free Trade was the panacea for Canada's stagnating economy. An economy that was no worse off nor better off than any other at the time of global recession. However dissident voices were not to be found amongst the Academics of the day who promoted Free Trade saying There Is No Alternative. And so the Liberals led the push for Free Trade despite John Turners tearful denials in his debate with Mulroney and Broadbent.

Policy makers who want a policy initiative in place may well foster the research to support the initiative. This fostering could come in various forms: commissioning background studies from sources known to favor the initiatives; designing the terms of reference in ways that will yield favorable results; “advertising” favorable results while “burying” unfavorable results; or, reviewing the research with suggestions tilted towards influencing the results or having them presented favorably.

In Canada, the signature recommendation of the Macdonald Royal Commission of 1985, was for a bilateral free trade agreement between Canada and the U.S. That recommendation led to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), negotiated between 1985 and 1987 and implemented January 1, 1989. The research of the Commission was extensive, involving 280 studies done mainly by 300 different academics in 70 volumes.

The importance of academic research to the Commission is also illustrated by the fact that 84 percent of the 1,014 references in the final report are to research studies (67 percent from the academic literature and 17 percent from the background research studies of the Commission which tended to synthesize the academic research). Only 10 percent of the references were to briefs formally presented to the Commission and 6 percent from references to transcripts of the public hearings (calculations from data in Inwood, 2005:181).

The fact that the academic research generally favored free trade while the briefs and public hearings generally involved advocacy positions opposed to free trade, suggests that the research also had a greater impact (Inwood, 1998:18).

The research on trade had a number of important characteristics that likely facilitated its
impact on public policy. It was high quality research done by top researchers in the country and coordinated by a prolific and respected trade economist. The computable general equilibrium models were particularly influential, especially because they captured the indirect productivity enhancing effects of the restructuring that would occur because of the economies of scale for producing for a large market. The research of the Commission generally involved a synthesis of the cumulative stock of existing research, the vast majority of which favored free trade. The near consensus perspective favoring free trade is illustrated by the fact that “only one academic could be found to make the anti-free trade case out of the approximately three hundred hired by the Commission” (Inwood, 1998:35).

This homogeneity of perspectives within economics and the rigor with which they are advanced made economics prominent as a source of policy advice to the Commission (Simeon, 1987). Brooks and Gagnon (1988:109) conclude that this is a more general phenomenon: “There can be little doubt that economists remain pre-eminent among social scientists in their integration with the policy process.”

The research also had champions who made the case for free trade to the Commissioners and to the politicians, and who defended it in the heated public debates that ensued. Trade unions strongly opposed the FTA and organized public forums against it. In countering this, Macdonald (2005:11) acknowledges the important role played by an Industrial Relations academic, John Crispo, for “his robust platform technique which ultimately frightened away the union leaders from contested meetings where initially it was they who had brandished the verbal brass knuckles.”

There were certainly attacks on the research and on the academic case for free trade. However, the attacks tended to be polemic and based on more nationalistic denunciations of free market economics in general. They tended not to provide alternatives based on different methodologies, and the work was generally simply presented at conferences or published in forums of contemporary opinion as opposed to peer-reviewed academic journals (Inwood, 1998:5).

The term neo-liberal was coined in this period to note the shift that mainstream political economists were making in calling for Free Trade, reductions in social benefits, reinventing government, contracting out services and privatization. All these went hand in hand, and while promoted by neo-cons elsewhere in Canada they truly were policies of the New Liberals; neo-liberalism.

Begun by Trudeau and MacDonald they were then carried through in the nineties by Chretien and Martin. The current Conservatives are the beneficiaries of the Liberal restructuring of the state.

While free trade was the signature recommendation of the Macdonald Commission, numerous other recommendations were made backed by labor and social policy research. As Riddell (2005) indicates, many of these
recommendations were implemented into policy, including unemployment insurance reforms; active adjustment assistance policies; income supplements to the working poor; national testing of student achievement; and deemphasizing minimum wages.

In his overall assessment, Bradford (1999/2000:158, 159) concludes: “The Macdonald Commission report remains the essential component reference point for the host of era-defining policy innovations, ranging from continental free trade to restrictions on unemployment insurance and retrenchment of the federal role in social assistance, legislated between 1985 and 1997 by successive Conservative and Liberal governments.”

Freer trade was also regarded as a potentially effective way for the federal government to pressure provincial governments to adopt market-oriented reforms given the substantial control they have over policy initiatives in Canada’s system. This was especially the case since there was a backlash against the nationalist and government interventionist policies that prevailed during the 1960s and 1970s, including wage-price controls, energy price fixing, foreign investment restrictions, government procurement policies, and a state trading corporation to
assist smaller Canadian firms to sell to centrally planned economies (Chant, 2005:14). Such policies were often regarded as contributing to the worst recession Canada experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Interestingly, while he was previously in political office, Macdonald himself presided over many of these interventionist strategies including a national oil policy, a state-owned petroleum company, government investment in oil developments that were avoided by the private sector, price controls on uranium exports, and the wage-price control program. He attributes his conversion to free trade and less government intervention to: “My experience in the private sector after my departure from government made it clear that state-controlled programs
had failed to achieve the rates of growth to which we all aspire” (Macdonald, 2005:9).

This rejection of nationalist-interventionist policies also occurred for Prime Minister Trudeau who had earlier instituted many of the policies in the 1970s. By 1982, he indicated: “Personally, I remain convinced that the primary engine of economic development must be a dynamic private sector and that the marketplace is in most circumstances the best allocator of scarce resources”

The Liberal reinvention of government in this period meant the whole scale contracting out of government services, in particular computer based IT as well as P3 programs and the sell off and lease back of government buildings. Which has resulted in the the various scandals and boondoggles from the Gun Registry to the RCMP pension fund scandal.

That the Conservatives could get former Liberal Industry Minister David Emerson to cross the floor days after his election to occupy his old cabinet seat shows how interchangeable the two parties are when in power. After all Emerson is simply following through on Liberal policy even as a Conservative.




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"C '" Car Go

Wow how far from the maddening crowd can you get.

The Conservatives are sponsoring a big "C" car in the Canadian NASCAR races. Of course in this case NASCAR is not nearly as popular as in the U.S. and is in reality an elitist pro sport in Canada, like Horse Racing. It has little of the popular support of other Canadian favorite sportslike Hockey, Football, Soccer, Baseball, Basketball or even La cross.

Motor sports fans are extremely brand loyal. Statistics show that motor sports fans are in fact the most brand loyal consumers of any sports fans in the world.
• Corporate Canada estimates 5.3 million (15.2%) Canadians attend Stock Car
Racing events annually in Canada.
63% of fans at the track and viewers at home are between the ages of 30-49.
69% of motorsports fans make between $30,000 - $75,000 a year.
74% are homeowners.
75% are males.

And of course the idea of appealing to white middle class males who follow NASCAR was a policy of the Bush Republicans in the 2004 election. So why should we be surprised that the Harpocrites in Ottawa have now adapted it for themselves. After all they are claiming to want to appeal to ordinary Canadians; like NASCAR fans; middle class, white, males.

The Conservative Party has shifted its advertising strategy into a new gear and slapped the party logo on a NASCAR stock car.

The big blue Conservative "C" made its debut Sunday on the hood and front side panels of car 29 of the Canadian Tire NASCAR series, the Canadian offshoot of the popular U.S. stock-racing circuit.

The Canadian Tire circuit only started last fall after NASCAR bought the CASCAR series here in Canada.

And so long time race driver, bon vivant, raconteur and self published publicist Pierre Bourque, sounds like Bjork, is the beneficiary once again of Conservative largess.

Following the lead of Tim Hortons, Home Hardware and Milwaukee Electric Tool, the white No. 29 car in the Canadian Tire auto-racing series now sports a big blue "C" on its hood and side panels.

Clever move. A 'C' car. Get it, 'C' car go.

NASCAR is new in Canada having bought out the CASCAR circuit last fall. CASCAR was in trouble lacking popular appeal after a decade and needed the support of NASCAR.

The 2006 schedule was very late coming out and key tracks such as Delaware and Race City are missing. The hoped for success and excitement with NASCAR® involvement has not materialized, with many feeling that perhaps their presence is hurting rather than helping. Major sponsorship is desperately needed before this series completely fractures and disappears.

Once again showing the Tories support American and Foreign takeovers of Canadian industries, though they will tell you that's not their message. Their message is they are winners of course.

Which may be hard to sell since Bourque and his 'C' car came in 13th place in Saturday's race at Mosport.

And remember the environment, and the Tories call for cleaning up air pollution. Well thats kinda hard to do when race cars still use lead gasoline which is banned in Canada, except for the race car industry, aviation fuel, etc.. Wonder if the Conservatives will continue the exemption since they have a car in the race.

Canada’s Gasoline Regulations have prohibited the production, import and sale of leadedgasoline since 1990. Gasoline for use in competition vehicles has been provided an exemption under the regulations. The current exemption expires on January 1, 2008.

Gasoline is the most common fuel used in racing. Both leaded and unleaded gasoline formulations are used in Canadian racing. For engines with high compression ratios, a very high octane gasoline is required to prevent engine knock (and resulting engine damage) and to maximize power output. Lead additives are used to achieve this high octane.

Leaded gasoline that is imported for use in Canada has reported lead contents ranging from 0.1 to 4.23 g/L. The Gasoline Regulations have reporting requirements for anyone producing or importing leaded gasoline. The reports indicate that there is no Canadian production of leaded gasoline for use in competition vehicles. In 2005, 1,160 cubic meters of leaded gasoline was reported
as imported for use in competition vehicles. This represents 1.1% of the leaded gasoline pool in Canada (the remaining is used for aviation purposes) or 0.003% of all gasoline produced or imported into Canada.

The estimated breakdown of leaded gasoline sales for racing in Canada is as follows:
stock cars – 15 to 40%;
dragsters – 40 to 50%;

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Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater

Doug Mataconis of the Liberty Papers reports that Ron Paul is the only elected politician that has won his seat three times against the incumbent, without party support. Which is no small feat. Mataconis points out why;

Paul was helped by the fact that he was running in areas of Texas where the prevailing political beliefs are conservative, but a conservatism that is of the Barry Goldwater/Ronald Reagan leave-me-alone type than the interventionist/Christianist conservatism that prevails elsewhere in the country

This makes sense and why Ron Paul has broad based support amongst libertarians. However as I pointed out in Mr. Conservative; Barry Goldwater had no kith nor kin with Reagan, who was responsible for allowing the interventionist/Christian types into the ruling echelons of the party. Goldwater blamed Regan for abandoning the libertarian/conservative traditions of the party.

Of course the current crop of neo-cons masquerading as Republicans, Lincoln would be ashamed, would rather hearken to the days of Reagan, and his electoral victory, then the days of principle and defeat; the Goldwater era.

Which is why a politician of principles like Ron Paul stands a snowballs chance in hell in the Republican party of today.

h/t to Go Ron Paul!


SEE:

My Favorite Conservative

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