Iowa Paulestinians are going crazy (is that redundant?) over the news that Republicans plan to count caucus votes in “an undisclosed location.” By that, we assume they mean the underground bunker where Dick Cheney passed most of his term as vice president.
On the one hand, we agree the so-called threat to vote security sounds entirely made up. On the other, we don’t think it means Republicans are engaged in a conspiracy to deny Rep. Ron Paul (GOP/Lib – Tx) some rightful victory.
But try telling that to Paul’s supporters.
Politico reported that the Iowa GOP was going under deep cover to count the votes, but cited an AP story that only claimed Occupy Wall Street protestors would attend caucuses and vote no preference. How such action would scuttle the vote is not clear but it indicates Republican paranoia about the Occupy movement.
The state party has not yet told the campaigns exactly where the returns will be added up, only that it will be off-site from the Iowa GOP’s Des Moines headquarters.
Meanwhile, the man himself continues to explain, explain, explain. When ABC’s Jake Tapper asked Paul about racist statements published repeatedly in the Ron Paul Survival Report, Paul confessed only to bad management skills.
Tapper: Assuming what you’re saying is 100 percent true — you did not see these sentences — doesn’t this call into question your management style?
Paul: Well, yeah, I think so. But nobody — I don’t think anybody in the world has been perfect on management; everybody that’s ever worked for them. So, yes, it’s — it’s — it’s a flaw. But I think it’s a human flaw. And I think it is probably shared by a lot more people than myself, because, you know, when you have hundreds of people over the years that have worked for you, and it’s happened even in big corporations or big newspapers or on TV stations, you can’t monitor — every once in a while, somebody on a TV station will say something, but as the owner and (inaudible) you know, get blamed for what the person says.
It’s doubtful that hundreds of people wrote articles for the Ron Paul Survival Report but saying that certainly sounds better than admitting he backed those opinions. The same cannot be said for re-reads of Paul’s 1987 book.
But one of Paul’s own books, published solely under his name, contains several passages that could be problematic as he attempts to push his libertarian message into the political mainstream.
In his 1987 manifesto “Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution after 200-Plus Years,”…Paul criticized people suffering from AIDS or other contagious diseases for demanding health insurance coverage.
“The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim – frequently a victim of his own lifestyle – but this same individual victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for his care,” Paul wrote.
No word on where the candidate stands on providing public health care for smokers who develop lung cancer or overweight people who develop diabetes or little leaguers who break their collar bones.
Paul does, however, clearly question the existence of sexual harassment by referring to all such claims as “so-called” and refuting them with the evidence that everyone who is being sexually harassed doesn’t just quietly quit and slink off to a new job elsewhere since it’s all her fault anyway because, you know, you want it baby.
“Employee rights are said to be valid when employers pressure employees into sexual activity,” Paul wrote. “Why don’t they quit once the so-called harassment starts? Obviously the morals of the harasser cannot be defended, but how can the harassee escape some responsibility for the problem? Seeking protection under civil rights legislation is hardly acceptable.”
But speaking of sexism, I’m still waiting for some Ronulan out there to explain to me how Rep. Paul’s stance on abortion (he wants it outlawed) is consistent with his, to borrow a phrase, so-called support for adults making their own decisions without government interference, unless the adult in question is female. Anybody?
While we wait, check out a new web site that has scanned and posted the actual back issues of the Ron Paul Survival Report, and is publishing “best of” lines from the same on Twitter at @RP_Newsletter.
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