Republicans, Ron and the Revolution

An excellent piece by the CATO Institute’s Christopher Preble in Foreign Policy:

For most of this campaign season, an unassuming septuagenarian has been striking terror in the hearts of the Republican establishment. Much as he did in 2008, Ron Paul has exposed a rift within the Republican Party between small-government, anti-war libertarians and big-government, pro-war neoconservatives. Although Paul has yet to win a plurality in any state, he more than doubled his 2008 vote percentage in Iowa and tripled it in New Hampshire. He retains an enthusiastic following, particularly among younger voters. And he will make a lasting mark on the Republican Party, and the United States…

Paul is not only doing better this year than four years ago, but also better than in any of his other nationwide campaigns… 

So, what changed? In short, people’s attitudes toward the country’s wars and their concerns about the country’s debt, which the wars have exacerbated…

There is an inherent logic to Paul’s foreign policy that should appeal to small-government conservatives. For one thing, conservatives’ doubts about Washington’s ability to accomplish particular ends, no matter how well-intentioned, should multiply when the government project involves violence in foreign lands. Americans who doubt the U.S. government’s ability to reform health care should be doubly skeptical about its efforts to reform Afghanistan.

Those concerned about government power should also appreciate, as Paul does, that war has almost always led to the expansion of the state’s size and power at home. And he is hardly alone. “War is a friend of the state,” Nobel laureate Milton Friedman explained. “In time of war, government will take powers and do things that it would not ordinarily do.” We have seen this in the creation of new government agencies and the erosion of civil liberties after the 9/11 attacks…

Ignoring this dynamic, Paul’s Republican opponents are calling for spending even more money that the United States doesn’t have. They think that the $5.7 trillion now planned for military budgets over the next decade isn’t nearly enough. Mitt Romney promises to spend at least 4 percent of GDP on the Pentagon’s base budget, plus whatever more is needed for any wars that he may want to fight. If Romney is serious about fulfilling his pledge (which, given his track record, is far from assured), he would spend an additional $2.5 trillion on the military over the next decade. His military budget in 2022 would top $1 trillion — 61 percent more than current projections. And Romney has not explained which taxes he would increase or what other spending he would cut to cover that increase, which suggests that he would kick the problem to future generations in the form of more debt.

No wonder young people like Paul…

Republicans who argue that “the common defense” is one of the few legitimate functions of government and that therefore the Defense Department budget should be the last one cut after every other department must come to grips with the fact that most of what Americans spend on their military goes to defending foreigners.

This arrangement suits people in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike, but many people outside the Beltway hunger for a, yes, humbler foreign policy…

That sentiment is especially true for Paul’s enthusiastic young backers who regularly cite concerns about the growth of government and debt as their reasons for supporting him in the first place… 

Paul is enjoying the support of these motivated 20-somethings. In the seven states that have held either primaries or caucuses so far and for which we have reliable polls broken down by age, Paul won a plurality of the youth vote (18- to 29-year-olds) in five of them. He garnered the support of 48 percent of young Iowa caucus-goers and 46 percent of the youth vote in New Hampshire.

Paul also draws support from Democrats and independents who cross over to vote for him in the states where such party-switching is allowed (he garnered a larger share of the independent vote than any other candidate in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada) and from liberal bloggers with a civil-libertarian streak such as Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald. Predictably, then, skeptics suggest that Paul’s backers aren’t true Republicans and can safely be ignored.

They are only half-right on the first point and entirely off the mark on the second. Paul’s supporters favor limited government, fiscal discipline, sound money, low taxes, fewer regulations, and less government spending. They could be Republicans, and many genuinely are. Meanwhile, Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich could win the votes of every single registered Republican and still lose the election by a landslide.

Self-identified Republicans represent just 27 percent of the electorate, compared with 31 percent who identify as Democrats and a record-high 40 percent who call themselves independents.

Republicans must figure out a way to tap into those ideas of Paul that have bipartisan appeal…

Preble’s entire piece is well worth your time.

Read more at Ron Paul-Restore America Now