General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The real question that the Ron Paul candidacy poses for Democrats [View all]limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Ron Paul's policies are racist.
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But as to the point in the OP...
Ron Paul is pretty popular among a certain group of mostly younger white males.
But most of them are not racist, at least they don't think they are.
Some of them support him because of his positions on issues.
If the Democratic party were to take clear positions defending civil liberties, reforming drug policy, preventing the police state, standing up to the military industrial prison industries, etc, etc., then we might be able to peel off some of Ron Paul's people to vote Democrat instead.
But mostly I think they won't go for a Democrat anyway.
Their basic principles are
1)State's rights and
2)An fetish for smaller government.
The areas where liberals/progressives/Dems/lefties might agree with Ron Paul people, as important as those areas are, they are just coincidences.
On issues of equal or even greater importance, we on the left would never be able to agree on a candidate for major office that the Ron Paul people would also find acceptable.
Unfortunately some people don't know the difference between talking about issues and talking about personalities, so it can make getting at the issues a little tough sometimes.
I still think Democrats should lead on many of those issues though, and some Democrats do indeed do so.
But I don't think we'll be snatching away many Ron Paul supporters. They "don't like us".