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1131Hier 26 avril, le député républicain (libertarien) du Texas Ron Paul a annoncé qu’il lançait une “commission exploratoire” pour sa candidature pour la désignation républicaine pour les élections présidentielles de 2012. Cette décision concrétise effectivement sa candidature en lançant le processus qui s’y attache. Il s’agit d’un élément important de la vie politique US, dans la confusion actuelle, dans la confusion qui accompagne les candidatures au sein du parti républicain, et compte tenu bien entendu de la popularité de Ron Paul.
C’est David Weigel, de Slate.com, qui a annoncé la nouvelle ce 25 avril 2011. Raw Story l’a aussitôtt reprise, également ce 25 avril 2011.
Le 26 avril 2011, David Mark, sur le site Politico.com, a consacré sa rubrique quotidienne The Arena à cette nouvelle. The Arena s’est attachée une liste importante (autour de 500) de personnalités politiques et d’experts qui acceptent de réagir à une question de politique US que leur pose chaque jour le modérateur de la rubrique David Mark. Bien entendu, le nombre de réponses varient, selon l’intérêt et la disponibilité de ces collaborateurs extérieurs. La nouvelle sur la candidature de Ron Paul a attiré un nombre exceptionnel de réactions, par rapport au fonctionnement courant de The Arena. Les réactions sont très extrêmes, montrant l’attitude générale à la fois d’incertitude, d’agacement et d’inquiétude de l’establishment, ou du Système, vis-à-vis de Ron Paul, – allant du sarcasme méprisant et de la dérision, jusqu’à l’intérêt et à l’admiration le plus souvent colorés du regret de ne pas envisager un avenir possible pour cette initiative de Ron Paul dans les normes du Système. Nous avons extrait quelques-unes de ces réactions qui nous paraissent particulièrement significatives.
L’intervention de David Mark pour susciter les commentaires est la suivante : «Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) unveils a exploratory presidential committee in Iowa Tuesday, a key step in gearing up for a White House race.
»Has the Republican primary electorate moved closer to Paul's views on debt since his 2008 race? Or will foreign policy and related matters prove a bridge too far for the conservative mainstream? In a contentious interview Monday Paul dismissed Fox News host Sean Hannity's fear of Sharia law in America.»
Voici les quelques réactions que nous avons choisies…
«Ron Paul brings energy and a great number of young activists into the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement. Some conservatives whined that 10 percent of the 11,000 attendees at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference were Ron Paul enthusiasts. This is a problem? Have a different favorite candidate – bring your activists to CPAC next year. How many can you bring?
»Political leaders who bring new activists into the party are a great asset. Pat Robertson lost the 1998 Republican primary but brought 2 million activists into the Republican Party and created the Christian Coalition that greatly strengthened the conservative movement. Goldwater lost the general election in 1964 and rebuilt the Republican Party and put in on a course to be both a conservative and majority party.»
»Ron Paul is not an enthusiast for continuing the occupation of Afghanistan. But this is not Bush’s war anymore. It is Obama’s Wilsonian effort. Polling shows conservatives and tea party activists are open to a different approach. A conversation on how America can best defend itself is a useful and important conversation to have within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. If you like how things are going with Obama’s approach – vote for him.
«Let's start by stating the obvious: Ron Paul has no chance of ever winning the Republican nomination or the presidency. It's not just his quirky, out-of-the-mainstream views, he also neither looks nor sounds like a president of the United States, and stature and gravitas play an important role in this process. Is it just me, or does Paul bear an eery resemblance to that guy who played “My Favorite Martian”? And many of his positions are from outer space, too.»
«The Republican Party of the 1930s was known for its sympathy with the isolationist America First movement. As the Soviet threat loomed larger and larger following World War II, the GOP, led by the great Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, decided that the country was in peril and that its very survival required bipartisanship at home and U.S. leadership abroad. This strategic decision at the very least saved the Republican Party from irrelevancy, and could well have saved the country from Cold War defeat.
»In the years that followed, the GOP gained a reputation for a deep commitment to national security. The names flow like a who’s who of international leadership: Eisenhower, Dulles, Nixon, Bush I, and even the maligned Bush II.
»The Republican Party now boasts a contender who would break with that tradition. Ron Paul is as close the isolationism of Charles Lindbergh as any candidate now on the political horizon. He has expressed his views honestly and with conviction. “Another term for progressive war is aggression,” he says as he chides the country for coming to the aid of victims of aggression. And “clichés about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies” – another Paul arrow at the heart of U.S. activism.
»Most recently during an interview with Fox News, Paul affiliated himself with the apologists for Sept. 11, terming it a “blowback phenomenon from the fact that we were over there and had a base in Saudi Arabia.”
»From what I have observed, Ron Paul is an honest man of deep conviction, but more than conviction is required in a president. The president of this country must share a vision not only of its greatness, but if its basic goodness. He must be prepared to defend this country and its allies against religious fanatics, international terrorists, and others whose national vision begins and ends with the defeat of America.
»Ron Paul is, at heart, a very small man with small visions and small aspirations for his country. His opposition to a big military is rooted in the same anti-modernity as his opposition to a central bank like the Federal Reserve. It may be that the American century is ending, that the nation is suffering a collective failure of will, and that we are ready to deal submissively with those who grow weary of American power and responsibility.
»For these, Ron Paul is the man of the hour. For the rest of us, his time will never come.»
«Ron Paul is a fundraiser not a vote-getter. He can raise impressive amounts of money and has absolutely no ability to turn that into votes. But he provides an important voice to the process, a view that is not often seen in American politics. He is frank, has core beliefs and is not concerned about taking on Republican or Democratic views, even if they are popular. If nothing else, Ron Paul is fun to watch in debates.»
«The Ron Paul Revolution in 2008 and the tea party movement that followed shows that the American conservative mainstream is starting to awaken to its own pre-neocon past and potential future. It is seeing itself as the bulwark needed to protect our Republic, the rule of law, individual liberty and our fiscal health against those in both parties whose policies have taken the United State to the precipice of disaster.
»For those who think both constitutionally as Dr. Paul does and systemically, it's impossible to distinguish between our national debt and our foreign policy. Dr. Paul is one of the few candidates who offers an integrated and systemic way of understanding the difficulties we face as a country and the means to restore our Republic. The systemic understanding looks at the collusion between big business and big government, the central bank and the political elite. This includes the military-industrial complex, the medical/agricultural-industrial complex and the security-industrial complex among others. By breaking those ties that end up binding us as tax payers and citizens by following the Constitution, Dr. Paul has given us a path to sanity. As a true conservative whose tool for economic analysis is Austrian Economics, Dr. Paul opposes fiat currencies, central planning ( including a central bank i.e. the Federal Reserve), and is a proponent of true free markets.
»He also, following in our Founding Fathers foot steps, calls for an end to entangling alliances that deprive us of our treasure and in many cases the lives of our young men and women. He is not blind to the dangers of the world but does not seek to create new enemies and bogeymen. Dr Paul wants the United States to have the best-trained and armed defense forces in the world but one's that are used only to protect the United States and our strict national interests. His stances are the stances of many if not most in the tea party and the conservative movement as well as a growing number of independents.
»Even for those who disagree with Dr. Paul on a few of his stances , most recognize the need for debate and a rethinking of so much of our governments policies. His ideas are now becoming mainstream conservative ideas.»
«Ron Paul can certainly win the GOP primaries but his candidacy reads “Barry Goldwater” all over it come the general – and that's OK.
»He ran and lost in the 2008 Republican primary, but in the process gained loyal supporters and a following most other primary contenders would kill their mothers for. The GOP has moved closer to his positions in the interim – Ron Paul is the father of the tea party for sure.
»So Ron Paul has every chance to be the 2012 version of Barry Goldwater for the Republicans – a principled politician ready to fall on his sword for the good of the cause. Like Goldwater, who lost the electoral college to one of Paul's fellow Texans, Lyndon Johnson, by 486-52, Paul will prefer to lose — and he would against President Obama – than be, in his mind, wrong.
»That willingness to lose is at the heart of the tea party movement's infiltration of the Republican Party today.»
«Ron Paul is the rarest of all creatures, an honest politician. His entry in the presidential race should help to promote a serious debate on the country's foreign and military policy, the purpose and control of the Federal Reserve Board and the structure of the nation's social welfare program. Serious people across the political spectrum should be happy to see Rep. Paul entering the Republican presidential race.»
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