Bizarre, Politics

Ron Paul Get 90 Seconds in 90 Minute Debate

There is an interesting controversy out of the Republican debates where Rep. Ron Paul was given just 90 seconds to speak during a 90 minute debate. I have never hidden my admiration for Paul for his courageous positions on issues like torture and his opposition to the various wars. What is particularly troubling is that Paul used his limited time (as did John Huntsman) to speak out against torture. We have previously discussed whether the mainstream media is actively marginalizing the candidate. On this occasion, however, it appears to have been an intentional decision by CBS in the South Carolina debates.

A study cited below by the University of Minnesota last month “confirmed that Ron Paul had been given the least speaking time out of all the Republican candidates during the debates, even less than the likes of John Huntsman and Rick Santorum, who have routinely been beaten by Paul in national polls.”

Supporters are also citing an email inadvertently sent to Michelle Bachmann’s campaign in which a CBS staffer referenced how Bachmann’s campaign had made representatives available for an after-debate webshow. In the email, CBS News political analyst John Dickerson responded by saying, “Okay let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”

Likewise, supporters are still smarting over an exchanged between Politico’s Roger Simon and CNN host Howard Kurtz after the Iowa straw poll where Paul basically tied for first with Bachmann. Simon dismissed Paul as relevant and said “we’re gonna ignore him.” Kurtz responded by saying “We are in the business of kicking candidates out of the race.”

Of course, at least Republican have debates and choices. These debates have proven highly useful for voters in sorting out candidates. Democrats will get no debate and no choice. Despite great opposition to Obama from civil libertarians and other groups, the Democratic National Committee and process is a lock for Obama and voters will be given no other options but to vote for him or choose a Republican or third-party candidate.

Source: InfoWars

133 thoughts on “Ron Paul Get 90 Seconds in 90 Minute Debate”

  2. Off topic–but on the subject of voting:

    Anti-Voter Fraud Tea Party Group Hosts Author Who Thinks Poor Shouldn’t Vote
    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/anti-voter_fraud_tea_party_group_hosts_author_who_thinks_poor_shouldnt_vote.php?ref=fpb

    Excerpt:
    The King Street Patriots are a Texas Tea Party group with an anti-voter fraud spin off organization that is plotting a nationwide poll watching movement and advocates for voter ID laws. Matthew Vadum is a conservative columnist who thinks that registering poor people to vote is un-American and “like handing out burglary tools to criminals.” On Tuesday, the King Street Patriots will be hosting him for lunch in Houston.

  3. @Frankly: As bad as Obama has been he is still a mixed bag with some pluses.

    The end of DADT is a plus. Hooray. Did he stop torture? Hold the banks to account? End the senseless wars? Close Guantanamo? Pass the Public Option he expressly, on video, promised would be in any health care bill he signed? End the surveillance state? Enforce habeas corpus and give Guantanamo prisoners fair trials in civilian court? Appoint actual liberals to the Supreme Court? Exclude lobbyists from his administration? Uphold the Constitution?

    This is not a mixed bag to me, even the health care bill gives away the farm for a handful of beans. This is not the man that ran, not the campaign I contributed to, and not the man for whom I voted. Not even remotely, and do not accuse me of extremism, of being pissed off because I did not get everything I wanted: I got 5% of what I was explicitly promised and 0% of the thing I wanted most: A president with principles that would not sell out to corporate overlords and the military complex, which is what he has done.

    @Frankly: The alternative, a Teaparty dominated government, will be an even worse disaster.

    First, Ron Paul would not be a “tea party” administration, it would be a libertarian administration.

    Second, an “even worse disaster” for how long? One administration? Anything they can do, liberals can undo. If you truly believe that it will be impossible to undo their damage, then I think you truly believe that the country as a whole would not want to undo their damage, and if that is true then it means you want to leave on the books laws even though the majority of the country disagrees with those laws. Why would you want that? If we are trying to hang onto a status quo because we do not believe we could ever get it back, isn’t that just as much a tyranny of a minority over the majority?

    I do not believe we are, I think if citizens feel the pain of losing anything they find valuable as a result of one election, it will come back even stronger and more bulletproof in two or four years, if not overturned sooner. People may get complacent, that doesn’t mean they do not have the strength to react and fight back when they get hit.

    Third, I disagree with “an even worse disaster,” I cannot stress enough the damage Obama has done to our constitutional civil rights, and I personally would throw just about everything else under the bus to protect those and restore the constitution in general. We are sacrificing our rights for sops and safety. Bush & Cheney began the erosion, and instead of ending it Obama took the baton and ran with it, and that made ignoring the Constitution mainstream: Both parties do it with impunity. It is a travesty.

  4. We miss the point getting into the merits of these excluded candidates. What strikes me is the blatant media admissions of how they limit viable candidates frm being able to deliver their message. What they have wrought by relying on the instability of polling numbers is turning political discourse into the dramatic narrative of a sporting event. From the MSM’s esthetic this creates entertainment value. From their rungs on their corporate ladders this helps them advance their careers as entertainers. From their overweening egos this gives them the power of choice by making a candidate “in” or “out”. That it has little to do with the issues of the day is irrelevant to the since the believe the public is too dumb to understand the complexities of the issues. This is to me the real story being revealed.

  6. Tony C:

    “Ron Paul is not crazy for wanting small government or lower taxes, he is mistaken for believing that would increase freedom when it would decrease it.”

    I’m genuinely curious..exactly how would smaller government and lower taxes result in less freedom?

  7. It is clear that the media works hand and glove with the elites to get the election results of their choice. The quotes in JT’s post are a remarkable testament to the amount of manipulation of the public.

    Knowing that the media is full of manipulation means we have to work harder at really understanding who the candidates are and what their real positions are. That won’t be easy.

    This is a sad position for our nation to be in. There is little by way of real information available to voters. Most people are busy trying to survive in tough economic times. They really don’t have time to dig into things. We also have people who, although they may have time to understand the truth, have no interest in it. Thus propaganda aimed at both those who have no time, and those who have no interest in the truth, is extremely effective for both mainstream parties. That is exactly what is happening in our nation today.

    If we had a real press someone would be digging into who is giving the orders to time out some candidates, while in that and many other ways is picking and choosing our “choices” for us.

  8. @Bdaman: It took Ron Paul — whom every Good Progressive will tell you is Completely Crazy and Insane

    Why ruin a good post by starting it with a lie? I personally know half a dozen “good progressive” college professors, Obama supporters and contributors, that do not think Ron Paul is either crazy or insane, and even MORE that agree with him strongly about the very things you write about in this post; the war on drugs, war in general, presidential assassination of US Citizens by declaration, the use of torture, the illegality of the surveillance state and the erosion of our rights to privacy and freedom from warrantless search. In fact I agree with you about those topics, and I think of myself as far more progressive than most people that claim to be progressives.

    Do you fail to understand that by starting out your post with a lie about Progressives, you alienate those progressives, and that makes them combative, and that makes them less likely to agree with anything you say, even if it actually has value?

    Ron Paul is not crazy for wanting small government or lower taxes, he is mistaken for believing that would increase freedom when it would decrease it.

    If it is your desire to promote Ron Paul, which I think would be a fine thing for you to do, concentrate on his positions that we can all agree with.

    The war on drugs, for example, is a waste of money, increases our police state, and wastes the lives of both cops and children. It destroys the lives and potential of 18-24 year olds that have not even reached full mental maturity and judgment, putting them in prison and turning them into hardened criminals over marijuana possession. Don’t you realize that a majority of Americans now think marijuana should be legalized? That means they agree with Ron Paul on that point, and actually probably 80% do not think it is a crazy position.

    What percentage of Americans think the President should be able to unilaterally order a US citizen killed, without any trial, evidence or proof of guilt? A huge majority agree with Ron Paul that the President should not have that power; in fact I think a larger percentage of progressives than conservatives side with Ron Paul on that point.

    What percentage of Americans think the government has the right to listen to your every phone call, read your every email, record every web page you ever visit, listen to you in your house or office without a warrant or any cause whatsoever? I think a greater majority of progressives than conservatives side with Ron Paul on that point.

    The same is true for ending the wars: It is Conservatives pushing for the wars and illegal torture and renditions, Ron Paul wants to end them!

    If all you want to do is express your irrational hatred of progressives, do it in a separate post and leave Ron Paul out of it. If you are sincerely promoting Ron Paul, concentrate on what he could actually do something about with his Presidential Veto, as Commander in Chief, as Chief Executive of all civil servants, and with the appointment of an Attorney General that agrees with him.

  10. The problem with your thinking Tony is Paul will not be a choice. We are building toward a 2000 situation where a candidate that can’t win will grant victory to one who shouldn’t. As bad as Obama has been he is still a mixed bag with some pluses. The alternative, a Teaparty dominated government, will be an even worse disaster.

    Bachmanns people are playing CBS like a fiddle. Whining that the librule media denied ‘ol batshit her deserved attention during the debate. CBS divided time based on poll numbers – a stupid yardstick but not uncommon – but the campaign has decided to rouse the rabble by pretending it was a slight because she is a conservative . . . unlike every other clown in the car (exception made for Romney who has no known political philosophy he wouldn’t abandon when convenient)

  11. If you are a women you would be nuts to vote for Ron Paul. I agree with his view on torture, but that is about it. This is the same guy who said he does not believe in evolution! Why should we celebrate a candidate who is going to continue the Republican war on women?

  14. I do NOT agree with Ron Paul on abortion rights (he wants to outlaw abortion), on taxes, on the economy, on education, unemployment, the EPA or on any public service.

    That said, he is the only candidate I could vote for in 2012; I will not vote for Obama, Romney, Perry, Cain, or any of the other hypocritical corporate liars.

    At least I DO agree with Ron Paul on ending the wars, ending the bailouts, ending the war on drugs, and ending the Patriot Act and surveillance state and restoring our civil rights, all of which are things he could do something about as President.

    I contributed several hundred dollars to Obama’s campaign and voted for him in primary and general, but he has proven himself a liar and a corporate servant, and I won’t vote for him again.

  15. It took Ron Paul — whom every Good Progressive will tell you is Completely Crazy and Insane — to point out to the GOP the rather glaring inconsistency between, on the one hand, distrusting government authorities to run health care, but on the other, wanting to empower the President to kill whomever he wants with no transparency or due process. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote last year in Newsweek about who and what is “crazy”:

    Forced to name the “craziest” policy favored by American politicians, I’d say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. . . . If returning to the gold standard is unthinkable, is it not just as extreme that President Obama claims an unchecked power to assassinate, without due process, any American living abroad whom he designates as an enemy combatant?

    Crazy/Insane Ron Paul also objected to the killing under Obama not only of Awlaki, but, two weeks later, of Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, also a U.S. citizen, and his 17-year-old cousin. Think Progress forgot to include those dead teenagers on its list of Obama’s “foreign policy successes” — just as they forgot to include such smashing successes as this, this, this, this and this. But Ron Paul yet again showed how insane he is by pointing out that it’s a bad thing — both morally and prudentially — for the U.S. Government to run around continuously killing Muslim children from the sky. All Sane and Serious People know that the President has the right and the duty to keep killing Muslim teeangers such as Awlaki’s 16-year-old son; only crazies like Ron Paul object to such necessities.

    http://www.salon.com/2011/11/13/gop_and_tp_on_obamas_foreign_policy_successes/singleton/

  17. Ron Paul is the Dennis Kucinich of the Republican party. I think this sort of thing happens to candidates from both parties. I’d say that members of both parties have had their choices limited with the help of the media.

    There are other Republicans who are being excluded from the debates:

    The Two GOP Candidates Being Shut Out
    The Daily Beast
    Oct 29, 2011
    Two Republican candidates with solid political experience and poll numbers on par with Michele Bachmann can’t get a spot in the debates. Jill Lawrence on why they’re being excluded.
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/29/gop-s-gary-johnson-and-buddy-roemer-shut-out-of-2012-debates.html

    Excerpt:
    Johnson and former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer, with his populist critiques of corporate influence and fellow politicians, are two of the most interesting people running for the Republican nomination. They have traditional résumés, the kind that often translate into attention and traction, and mainstream GOP ideas on taxes and the size of government. (Roemer says he released his flat-tax proposal three months ago.) Johnson built a business before winning two terms as governor; Roemer has been a banker and a congressman as well as a governor.

    The conventional wisdom is that governors have a leg up in presidential races. They have been deciders, after all, and they aren’t dragging around histories of controversial votes. This year, however, has been challenging for governors. Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, and now Herman Cain have topped the polls and made numerous high-profile appearances on national TV. Meanwhile, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman can’t catch a break. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has already been driven from the race. Texas Gov. Rick Perry—who once led the field—is trying to recover from a collapse. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is having trouble closing the deal. And most of America doesn’t know that Johnson and Roemer are running. They can’t even get into the debates.

    True, they are decidedly offbeat, but how would one describe Ron Paul?

    Johnson was invited to two of eight debates so far. Roemer hasn’t been in any, and told me he’s quite proud of his low-single-digit standing in some polls, given his exclusion from the high-octane events. “I’d be embarrassed if I were some of these guys,” he said. “Some of them have been in seven debates, and they are at 3 percent.”

    Roemer has offered to appear in place of Perry if the Texan makes good on his hint that he may skip some of the dozen or so remaining debates after the next one, on Nov. 9. In the meantime Roemer will continue to tweet answers to debate questions before the candidates onstage respond. “I’ve watched every one of them. Is that sad?” he told me, laughing. “It might be this is an election where experience counts against you. Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I have too much experience.”

  18. Not one of the republican candidates is pro-choice. Usually an incumbent does not debate. No incumbent of either party has debated in my lifetime.

  19. Paul loses potential supporters when he does things like call Elizabeth Warren a “socialist “as he did last week. For him to get the republican nomination. he would have to attract crossovers. That is not happening because of his other extreme positions.

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