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Kelefa Sanneh on the end of Ron Paul’s career in electoral politics, and his son Rand, who has recently sounded “more than a little bit Paulish”: http://nyr.kr/QifX3f
Photograph by Lauren Lancaster.
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A Libertarian House on the Prairie? Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, and the making of an American ideology: http://t.co/uhrjZ96A
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In the magazine this week, Kelefa Sanneh writes about the Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul—his campaign, his “unique brand of libertarianism,” and his political career. No story about Paul would be complete without at least something said about his devoted supporters. For more of Lauren Lancaster’s photographs of Paul supporters: http://nyr.kr/z6l2OM
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Party Crasher: Ron Paul’s Libertarian Roots
There is only one politician whom Paul regularly praises in his speeches—a man he coyly refers to as a “senator from Kentucky.” If Paul sees a future for himself in the Republican Party, it is through his son Rand, who might have an easier time than his father in attracting traditional conservatives to his cause. (During his campaign for the Senate, for example, Rand Paul declined to rule out using force to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.) Unlike most politicians on the verge of retirement, Paul can’t accurately claim that he has nothing to lose by breaking with the party that has been his home for all but one of his years in politics. Hope for his son’s prospects—and a disinclination to put him in an awkward position—might be enough to keep Paul from ending his political career with another third-party campaign. If he split the vote, indirectly helping to reëlect Obama, it might be a long time before Republicans were willing to get behind anyone named Paul.
In the meantime, Ron Paul seems content to stoke the discontent of his acolytes. He doesn’t know exactly when the implosion will occur, but he knows it’s forty years closer now than it was when he first sounded the alarm.
- In this week’s issue, Kelefa Sanneh writes about Ron Paul’s Libertarian roots
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This week, Jane Mayer wrote about the billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
An excerpt from Jane’s piece in the magazine, “Covert Operations”:
“The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.”
