have run for office<\/a> behind them.<\/p>\nI don’t support Ron Paul, personally, as a candidate, for many of the same reasons I bailed out of the Big-L Libertarian Party fourteen years ago; while I agree with its core principles and high-level beliefs, there is little about your candidate, like my old party, that makes me think he’s ready for prime time when it comes to trying to run a nation of 300 million people.<\/p>\n
But this isn’t about Ron Paul or his principles, or the wrinkles in his past that many of you would have us ignore. \u00a0This is about you.<\/p>\n
Four years ago, you – or an earlier generation of “you” – bum-rushed the caucuses, with the intention of taking over the Minnesota GOP (as in other states). \u00a0And of the ones that got elected to go to the House District conventions, some actually showed up. \u00a0And of the ones that got elected to go to the Congressional District convention, some showed up. \u00a0And of those few left who got elected to go to the state convention, fewer still showed up.<\/p>\n
In short, when the time for writing resolutions and declaiming about “Doctor Paul” passed, and the time to try to do the hard, boring stuff started, you – the vast, vast majority of you – sat it out. \u00a0And that’s notwithstanding the number of you that opted to sit out the election.<\/p>\n
It’s easy – and your right – to say “If you don’t nominate my candidate, I’m going to sit this election out”. \u00a0But this isn’t about the election – this is about the party of which Ron Paul is a member; the one to whose caucuses Paul and his organizers are going to send you in your thousands in two weeks.<\/p>\n
Getting an agenda passed takes more than just noise, intransigence, and near-religious fervor. \u00a0It takes persistence, a willingness to work within a party system (if only to co-opt it – and that’s not only not a bad thing, that’s actually how politics works!), the cultivated ability to sit in party functions and keep your ass from falling asleep long enough not only to get candidates who believe in what you do endorsed, but to keep the party in line with your principles as well. \u00a0And as someone who just spent a year as a minor elected party functionary on a libertarian-conservative agenda, let me tell you – that’s the hard part.<\/p>\n
So, Ron Paul supporters, please answer the question: \u00a0are you ready to try to stick around, learn a few things, and try not only work with <\/em>(and co-opt!) the party in which your candidate is running, and to which his son is committed?<\/p>\nOr are you going to collapse into epic disappointment again?<\/p>\n
Because if it’s the former, I’d love to talk with y’all.<\/p>\n
That is all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To: \u00a0Ron Paul supporters From: Mitch Berg, Former Big-L Libertarian, current small-l libertarian Re: \u00a0Your candidate All, I love a David and Goliath fight as much as anyone, and much more than most. \u00a0So the idea that a candidate could come in out of nowhere, electorally speaking, and tip the GOP establishment up on its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,16,30,13],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-25806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-conservatism","category-liberty","category-republicans","tag-open-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25806"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33735,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25806\/revisions\/33735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}