Ron Paul Banned From Iowa Forum

Posted by Eric F. Langborgh on 20 Jun 2007 at 10:45 am

A month ago, I wrote here about how the Republican establishment was been looking for ways to silence presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. Well, now they have done just that in an important candidates forum leading up to the first in the nation caucuses in Iowa.

Dr. Paul has been excluded from the June 30th presidential candidates forum on Saturday, June 30th in Des Moines, sponsored by the Iowans for Tax Relief and Iowa Christian Alliance. In fact, he was never invited by the sponsor panel, which includes Ed Failor, the chairman of Iowans for Tax Relief, and — surprise, surprise — a senior advisor to the McCain Campaign in Iowa.

According to the sponsors’ latest press release, “All credible Democrat and Republican Presidential candidates were invited.” Oh, really? Ron Paul is not “credible,” but Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Duncan Hunter — five of the six scheduled speakers — are? He is not more credible than Jim Gilmore, originally slated to appear but who has now dropped out and was replaced by Hunter? Dr. Paul has a grassroots following much larger and more dedicated than all of these other candidates just named — but he’s not “credible?” When the second quarter numbers from the campaigns are released at the end of June, Dr. Paul’s campaign is likely to report much more in contributions than the rest of the “second tier” candidates — but he’s not at least as “credible” as the rest of these guys? Even at the end of the first quarter, Dr. Paul’s financial backing was on more solid ground than the most of these other candidates, having received $640K in contributions at that time. Gilmore had only raised $200K, and he was replaced by a man who had raised just $540K — $100K less than Paul — and seems to be going nowhere fast. Shouldn’t the sponsors have taken the opportunity of Gilmore’s dropping out to invite Paul instead of Hunter? (Or better yet, to have invited both?)

The irony here is thick. The liberal major of New York City has just left the Republican Party, likely in preparation for an independent bid for the White House. But as Dan Flynn notes today, none of the people who are trying to silence the stalwart conservative Ron Paul and run him out of the party were applying similar pressure to Michael Bloomberg.

The Republican Party has been reduced to a one issue drumbeat for war and more war. Ron Paul stands for everything the GOP once stood for but opposes the war machine. The price of such apostasy is a pull-all-stops effort to silence his candidacy for the presidency. The price for abandoning Republican principles on all other issues, as long as one toes the line on war, is exaltation. Hence, “Rudy McRomney.”

UPDATE — 6/21: The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund has written some good thoughts regarding this latest controversy.  They aren’t publicly available at the WSJ website, but someone has provided an extensive quote here.

© 2004-2008 Eric F. Langborgh