Ron Paul's unique ideals isolate him from two-party system

Allison Good Guest Columnist

By the time this is published, Super Tuesday will have come and gone, and the fates of most candidates will be sealed. So what I have written may be completely irrelevant, but after reading that Vassar’s “unofficial commentary blogger” Mads is endorsing Ron Paul for the Republican ticket, I realized that I knew very little about him. He has not generated enough buzz to be as well-known on campus as John McCain or Hillary Clinton, and he has definitely fallen off the radar of mainstream America.

Part-libertarian and definitely not your average Republican, this grandfatherly Congressional Representative from Texas is no newcomer to the presidential election: In 1988 he was nominated to run on the Libertarian ticket but won only 0.47 percent of the popular vote.

Although he is conservative on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, he is concerned with upholding the Constitution. For example, he has introduced legislation that would fully restore the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and he has decried the Patriot Act as a campaign against civil liberties. Paul has also declared the federal government’s interrogation techniques for political prisoners to be torture. He opposes the “War on Drugs” because he believes that decisions of the social domain should be left to the states.

Paul seems to be a walking oxymoron, championing individual rights while opposing Roe v. Wade. His conservative Libertarian Constitutionalism is a rare breed, and he is certainly not a stereotypical Republican candidate.

Because of the two-party system, values, decisions and laws are grouped into one of two groups: liberal and Democratic versus conservative and Republican. When a candidate like Paul comes along, it is difficult for Americans to see the cohesion of his ideas because he is one of those “crazies” who never fit the mold of the all-American Democratic or Republican candidate.

Unfortunately, Paul’s combination of ideals and his logic behind them cannot convince the average American who is accustomed to the two extremes that have dominated our country since 1792, when the anti-Federalists were created to oppose the Federalists.

Although Paul’s point of view is very interesting, in order to win the nomination one has to be in the position on the political spectrum that will bring in the most votes, which usually means adopting moderate viewpoints. Paul does not fall anywhere on the traditional political spectrum, since his ideas are either liberal verging on libertarian or extremely conservative.

Paul has no realistic chance of winning, and Americans may think he is a strange bird, but a lot can be said for the fact that his campaign is true to his ideals. Usually presidential candidates have to sacrifice something such as a radical economic philosophy or a controversial piece of legislation because extremes do not win votes. What wins votes is how well a candidate can bring the nation together and contribute to the overall success of the party, which means taking the middle ground on issues. However, Paul has campaigned on the issues that matter to him, refusing to surrender his integrity in the name of popularity.

It is unfortunate that we constantly think in terms of Democrat or Republican because there are many candidates who come along and blur the lines. If a candidate such as Paul fluctuates between the two, it begins to confuse voters who have never had to think outside the boundaries of those two parties. Paul is not demented and his proposals are not unbelievable, but they do not work for the voting constituency in America. His brand of politics is unrecognizable, which renders him “too controversial,” and his views become ammunition that his fellow Republicans can use against him to their own advantage.

It is harder for Paul to gain momentum when he is delegitimized by his colleagues on national television. He may even pull out of the race altogether after Super Tuesday, at which point the focus will be on McCain and Romney.

Paul is the subject of a vicious cycle in which only exciting candidates who seem to inspire the nation with either classical Democrat or Republican views receive substantial attention. It’s not that third-party candidates’ ideas are blasphemous; the problem lies with the Americans who have little or no education and do not have time to contemplate a nonconformist when the country revolves around two parties. Once newspapers endorse particular candidates and television stations focus on these inividuals, the focus revolves around only a few people.

The idea of restructuring the government to include more political parties is a very radical idea that would present several problems, but that does not mean that third-party candidates should be deemed unworthy of leading a nation that is split in two. Vassar students should not be afraid to think outside of the norms that have come to “define” American politics.