Yes, Ron Paul is bad.

[TheKentuckian]

58. One does not have to believe him to push Democrats in this area. If the old crazy bigot

can espouse the positions then Democrats can lead on them.

It is the issues supercede and preexist the personality and the vacuum the lack of representation artificially gives the crackpot, institutional racist, pro-poverty, anti-labor personality credibility just for mouthing the words that others only are willing to oppose in arguably less draconian and/or self defeating fashion than others might or do while mostly perpetuating and expanding the rot in all substantive outcome.

Paul's flimsy legs should be kick out from under him, our party creates his effective space that allows for even the perception of being anything other than a run of the mill anarchist greedhead by owning what he only mouths and by doing so would go a hell of a long way is ending much of the internal strife in our party.

Ignoring these issues or rolling them into a fuckwit isn't going to make them go away and further hedging around on these topics seem to be a dog that doesn't hunt. It seems we have rather severe wedge issues in the party that many are also vested into pretending away the contentiousness or that there are differences of opinion while avoiding espousing an opinion all while we generally work within these status quos which makes them the political consensus.

There seems to be very little concern in real numbers and probability that Paul is a contender or that he will peel votes in some third party bid. The concern seems to be discussing certain topics or making demands of the party revolving around them, which quite seriously includes a large segment of fundemental civil liberties and some rather pointless and expensive wars too.

The worry is anything that puts the party at odds with the establishment and existing profit centers being talked about outside of what can be passed off as the fringe.