All I Want For Christmas Is A Ron Paul Win In Iowa

The Iowa Caucuses are almost upon us and an EXCITING turn of events is taking place! Polls show that Crazy Libertarian Grandpa Ron Paul is only a few percentage points behind poll leader Newt Gingrich. As crazy as "poll leader Newt Gingrich" sounds, Ron Paul being within hand-to-hand combat distance of stealing this thing is even more exciting. Mostly because a Ron Paul win would throw the entire GOP race into crisis mode and who doesn't love a good ol' fashioned crises mode meltdown? Mitt Romney crying in a corner shouting, "What does it mean?" TV reporters tossing up their papers in frustration! News anchors being forced to interview Ron Paul and seriously talk about him as a "contender!" The Paulites going full-throttle on the Internet, trolling sites left and right saying "I TOLD YOU SO!"

I want this. I want this badly. Give it to me, ye' election Gods!

From Time Magazine's Swampland political blog:

The 76-year-old Paul has always been dismissed as something of a curio within GOP establishment circles and among many voters, but in an unsettled year he has a legitimate chance to crash the party and capture the Iowa caucuses. He registered 17% in this week’s TIME/CNN/ORC poll, behind just Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, and a jump from the 12% he registered a month earlier. The irony of his climb is that Paul, the most unconventional politician in the field, is making headway by running perhaps the most conventional campaign of any Republican presidential hopeful. Numerous Republican insiders, including Governor Terry Branstad, have cited Paul’s infrastructure as the best in the state. “He has the most extensive organization, the most passionate people,” says Tim Albrecht, Branstad’s spokesman. “It’s impressive that he’s up to 18%. All he needs is maybe another 6% to win the Iowa caucuses. He just needs to grow a little bit.”

Four years ago, Paul’s fan base was brimming with fervor but sloppily organized; this time, his campaign is not just motivated, but meticulously organized. “Ron Paul is definitely an undervalued stock,” concedes an Iowa aide for a rival campaign.

Marvelous. Tell me more, party crashers!

“We’re just going to do all the traditional things we’ve been doing,” says Drew Ivers, Paul’s Iowa chairman and a longtime Republican activist. “Mailings, calls, TV ads. We’re going to bring the candidate in more as we get closer to the end…It’s been a good, steady, solid growth [in the polls.] We feel we’ve got the momentum. We’ve got the loyalty. We’ve got the youth. And establishment Republicans are beginning to wake up a bit.”

While Paul’s young army — his campaign pegged the number of supporters in Ames at 1,350 — is a sight to behold, the diverse crowd at the Boone public library was a sign that he is beginning to shed the fringe tag that has dogged him. “There are a lot more middle-aged folks here, and that’s good,” says Brad Kiefer, a construction worker from nearby Ogden who caucused for Paul in 2007. “He’s becoming a little more mainstream.”

Don't tease me, Paulites! My heart can't take it!

Of course, not everyone is super excited about what a Paul win would mean. Rachel Maddow totally has poo-pooed all over my Paul Party.

From Huffington Post:

Maddow referenced former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008. Maddow said that in 2008, Huckabee "had about as much of a chance to win the Republican nomination for president as [she] did," despite his success in Iowa.

"Iowa Republicans' parochial, picayune, conservatism is so unrepresentative of the rest of the country's voters, even of the rest of the country's Republican voters...Iowa Republicans do not pick presidents. They pick Huckabees."

And Chris Wallace said a Ron win would simply discrete Iowa, not the GOP nomination fight.

From Mediaite:

“Well, and the Ron Paul people aren’t going to like me saying this, but, to a certain degree, it will discredit the Iowa caucuses because, rightly or wrongly, I think most of the Republican establishment thinks he is not going to end up as the nominee. So, therefore, Iowa won’t count and it will go on.”

Boo! Hiss! Why doesn't anyone want to join me in my excitement of a fringe candidate winning a major primary caucus? Won't anyone join in?

Thankfully, theGrio's Goldie Taylor is down!

From Mediaite:

“That’s meaningful where word of mouth and key influence and networks really mean something, when you have a county by county organization. That is something Herman Cain failed to do, something Newt Gingrich failed to do. Something that Mitt Romney has failed to do,” Taylor opined. “It seems to me that Ron Paul has the best and strongest organization and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he came away with winning Iowa and upset the entire field. It would put the Republicans back on their heels and have them reorganizing for New Hampshire, Florida, and South Carolina and some of the other early states. I do think that Ron Paul has a real shot at Iowa.”

Yes. That's the spirit. I still believe in miracles!

While I get Maddow and even Wallace's points about how if Paul wins the Caucus it probably won't mean anything in the long game for the GOP nomination, can't they see how exciting this could be?

It's true Huckabee did win Iowa in 2008, Huckabee never had that whiff of Freeper Fringe going for him. He was never an outlier. He was never an outsider. He was never someone people labeled as "crazy." He was country. But not CRAZY! When you said the name "Huckabee" it didn't put people into a frothing rage of how he is patently absurd as a candidate. People did not scratch their heads and simply REFUSE to take him serious, no matter how much attention he garnered.

What FOX News shows was Paul offered after 2008? How many times did Bill O'Reilly have Paul on for a chit-chat? Paul winning a major party primary would like if Dennis Kucinich or Al Sharpton had been able to win a primary on the Democratic side when they both ran for president in 2004. These are people who hand out leaflets, get their TV time and run to bring attention to an issue. They don't actually run to win. They run for awareness. 

Ron Paul is running conventional TV ads in Iowa that are actually good!

Mind you, I don't actually care for Paul. I pretty much only enjoy him as a spoiler, pointing out the absurdity in the GOP's over-the-top "War Whore" stance. When he starts talking about getting rid of government agencies and being all "freedom!" except when it comes to my lady parts, I stop being interested. But I enjoy a good show as much as the next person.

Give 'em hell, Ron! Make a go of it. If only to wipe that smug grin of Gingrich's maw. Hold that mirror up to the GOP and see if those voters like what they see.