In this episode, Richard and Jonathan discuss the results of Super Tuesday and the implications for the future of the Republican presidential race. They also take a deep dive into the reasons why so many Republican voters are choosing Mitt Romney and why they are voting for Rick Santorum.
00:03:59.360But he's getting all these sort of ultra-Protestant-type votes.
00:04:02.880But denominationism amongst Christian activists has long ceased to be an issue for the most part,
00:04:09.420and that's obviously playing to his advantage.
00:04:12.360Ron Paul is the joker in the pack who really doesn't fit in with the grid that most of the other candidates are on.
00:04:19.920He doesn't appeal to the Christian right particularly at all.
00:04:22.980He's weak in the South, and yet he has a strong and passionate vote as a Libertarian Republican on two tickets, basically,
00:04:33.220particularly the fondness of young voters for him, voters under 40,
00:04:38.440and his desire to cut the deficit in the Federal Reserve on the one hand,
00:04:43.300and his desire to keep America out of any looming wars, particularly one against Iran on the other.
00:04:48.600So from a distance, across the Atlantic, he appears the most ideological of the candidates.
00:04:54.140It's difficult for me to say what Gingrich stands for and how he differs from Santorum.
00:04:58.580I think Santorum's more a genuine candidate of the Christian right and is less Libertarian.
00:05:04.040Gingrich appears to be all things to all people on the right flank of the Republican Party.
00:05:10.100Romney attempts to be all things to all people right across the spectrum.
00:05:14.840Yes, I think your perceptions are quite valid.
00:05:19.560As to what Republican voters want, I think the whole election is about the fact that they will choose Romney in the end,
00:05:26.280but they don't particularly want to and are not enthused by the choice.
00:05:31.440And there's still the chance that somebody could emerge at the convention late in the day, but that's very unlikely.
00:05:37.440I think it's now statistically impossible, according to the London Times, for Gingrich or Santorum to develop the number of candidates,
00:05:47.400delegates that is necessary to have a chance of taking the nomination, but they won't drop out.
00:05:53.540It will probably go on for months yet and will probably go right up to the convention.
00:05:58.360Ron Paul has no chance whatsoever of the nomination, but he's got 25 delegates,
00:06:03.500so far as I understand, to the convention thus far and will go right to the end.
00:06:11.100I was in the United States a while back, and somebody told me that they wouldn't be at all surprised if Romney chose Ron Paul as his running mate.
00:06:20.120Yeah, this is a very interesting issue, and I wanted to talk about each of these candidates,
00:06:27.900because I think each of them has a particular meaning within the context of contemporary America and the GOP.
00:06:35.200But since you brought it up, let's just jump right into this.
00:06:39.800And, you know, there's a neoconservative commentator named Charles Krauthammer,
00:06:45.840and unlike a lot of his fellow third and fourth generation neocons, he's actually quite intelligent.
00:06:56.040And though his foreign policy might strike you and me as weird and crazed,
00:07:01.840he's actually quite perceptive about a lot of domestic affairs and kind of horse race-type politics.
00:07:09.060And he mentioned essentially what Ron Paul was doing.
00:07:13.560And, you know, obviously I think a lot of people look at Ron Paul as a real genuine person.
00:07:19.060He's ideological, maybe in a non-pejorative way of saying that,
00:07:24.920in the sense that he truly cares about the Federal Reserve System.
00:07:28.360He wants to talk about these issues that were arcane, but he is quite passionate about it.
00:07:33.900And I think he is genuine to a large extent.
00:07:37.320But I think Krauthammer was right about this, that Ron Paul, in a way, doesn't want to win.
00:07:44.280And in some ways he wants to build a movement and get his message across.
00:07:47.660But he also, you know, he doesn't want to come in first.
00:07:51.000He can't come in first, but he wants to come in second.
00:07:53.880And so if you look at the people whom he's attacked, he's rarely attacked Romney.
00:07:59.660And Romney's actually said some nice things about Paul.
00:08:01.940And Paul has really gone after essentially the silver and bronze candidates.
00:08:08.740He's really gone after Santorum, gone after Gingrich, and, you know, been negative against them quite accurately.
00:08:14.400But I think he's basically assumed that Romney is going to eventually get the nomination, that he could kind of come in number two.
00:08:31.980And I think in many ways he wants his son to inherit a, Rand Paul, to inherit a kind of, you know, the libertarian wing of the conservative movement and GOP.
00:08:41.920And for him to be the leader of this movement, perhaps in a way that Ron Paul never was.
00:08:46.940Ron Paul seems to offend a lot of the conservative movement by talking about, you know, you know, Michelle Bachmann hates Muslims and gays.
00:08:55.460You know, it's not a way that would really appeal to conservatives.
00:08:59.100Rand Paul's a lot better in that sense.
00:09:00.700So, you know, I think there's this major question of, you know, if that is Ron Paul's endgame, essentially to establish himself in the GOP, have his son, Rand, inherit his troops and the banner of libertarianism and so on and so forth.
00:09:18.800And I guess from my perspective, I guess one might say, what's the point?
00:09:25.720I think in some ways it diminishes a lot of that revolutionary spirit of Ron Paul in the sense of he really wants to go in and fundamentally change Washington, you know, diminish the welfare state by 75 percent in the Federal Reserve zone and so forth.
00:09:43.500I almost get the sense now that he wants to just kind of secure a sinecure for his son and, you know, along with people who really are never going to do what he wants, that is, you know, end the Fed, reduce the empire.
00:10:00.380I mean, it's hard to imagine Republicans ever doing anything of the kind.
00:10:05.940Do you agree with me here that, you know, maybe there's almost a kind of letdown aspect to the Ron Paul movement, that at the end of the day, it's about securing a spot in the Republican Party?
00:10:17.240Yes, I think that's not how things may pan out, because libertarianism has only a finite appeal in the wider electorate and in the Republican Party.
00:10:29.880I would imagine conservatism laced with Christianity has far more of a generic appeal than libertarianism.
00:10:37.040So already Paul's an oddball in that party.
00:10:39.740But he is creating a space for outside-the-box ideas, and maybe he feels his son is better able to put them across than he can.
00:10:50.720Do you think there's any mileage in the idea that Romney might choose Ron Paul as his running mate?
00:10:56.000I mean, as surprising as it sounds, I think it might very well happen.
00:11:00.360And again, there's just been some kind of funny things.
00:11:03.100I watched a video last night of Mitt Romney's victory speech, which I think was in Massachusetts, which is where he was governor, and he won that state by 50% or something like this.
00:11:18.560And he was mentioning Ron Paul and his supporters very kindly.
00:11:22.640He gave them a lot more mention than Santorum or Gingrich.
00:11:26.760So I think Romney might do this in the sense that Romney wants to win.
00:11:32.580He understands that that is a real force.
00:11:34.920And also, Romney seems quite realistic about himself and about the race in the sense that he understands that he might need those troops to really get excited about a candidate in a way that McCain was in a very similar situation.
00:11:52.040McCain is thought of as a liberal senator.
00:11:54.480He was pro-immigration, not good on a lot of other issues from the conservative, Christian conservative perspective.
00:12:04.060And he chose Sarah Palin, and all of his former enemies went nuts over her.
00:12:10.220They fell in love with her, thought she was – it really changed the whole dynamic.
00:12:17.620So in a way, I think Rand Paul might be an interesting choice like that, and a kind of realistic choice.
00:12:25.660Let me ask you a little bit about Mitt Romney.
00:12:29.220You know, I had a conversation with Matt Parrott a couple weeks ago, and we both admitted what Matt called, jokingly of course, a man crush on Mitt Romney, which we both have.
00:12:43.040And obviously, you know, I say that with tongue-in-cheek.
00:12:47.260What I mean is that Romney has always struck me as someone, a kind of politician whom I can't hate.
00:12:54.960And I generally hate all the rest of them.
00:12:57.940But Romney always strikes me as the kind of person you would trust, despite the fact that he's a Mormon, very waspy.
00:13:06.280He looks like – he clearly is a highly competent manager and professional.
00:13:12.020He kind of strikes people as maybe the kind of person, you know, your dad or the kind of person you'd want to run your corporation, the kind of boss you'd want.
00:13:22.880He's certainly tough, but he's not mean.
00:13:25.840He's just – he represents a kind of uber-wasp American professional, which is hardly ideal, but, you know, it has a lot of value, and it's something that we should – we shouldn't sell short.
00:13:40.980It's a – you know, and so it's hard for me to hate Romney.
00:14:03.820And in a way, I think Romney is one of the least sociopathic of the current political crop.
00:14:11.720And, you know, one of – the knock on Romney, if you look at most of the mainstream media, it's that he is a – you know, he's a plastic man.
00:14:24.220They'll make all these kinds of jokes.
00:14:26.480But, you know, I think it's the – I think it's the opposite.
00:14:29.240I think he's a corporate leader, kind of CEO, in the sense that he will listen to the constituency or his customer base.
00:14:37.540He'll change his product depending upon his customer base.
00:14:41.100And he'll listen to the shareholders and the corporate board, more or less.
00:14:45.000That is, he's willing to change and be flexible.
00:14:47.040Whether you think that he has no convictions or whether he's flexible, I guess a better – a euphemistic way of putting it, I guess depends on your perspective.
00:14:54.920But, you know, there are a couple of things that he said that I actually found quite striking and which led me to believe that he's – you know, he's hardly ideal.
00:15:03.660He's hardly a radical traditionalist or a white nationalist.
00:15:06.400He's probably never going to do what we really want him to do.
00:15:09.220But he struck me, again, as non-sociopathic, and that was that he was interviewed and he said that I don't really care about the lower class.
00:15:19.900He goes, we have a welfare state and a safety net, and if there are any problems with the safety net, I'll fix them.
00:15:29.100He said, I am worried about the middle class and whether, you know, America is going – you know, the American dream, the idea that you can get a good job, work your way up, have a family, you know, wife, kids, house.
00:15:43.420And, you know, I'm worried about whether that can be sustained.
00:15:48.700And, you know, obviously a lot of people said, oh, look, he's rich.
00:15:51.580He doesn't care about the lower class.
00:15:53.540But, you know, a lot of – I think there was a kind of implicit whiteness to what he was saying in that he actually was caring for the historic majority, the traditional Americans, Anglo-Saxons, who are, generally speaking, productive and prosperous.
00:16:11.280And, you know, a lower class – there are obviously millions of whites in the lower class.
00:16:15.540But, you know, we obviously have a large, growing lower class because of mass third world immigration and so on and so forth.
00:16:21.980I think Romney really does care about America's historic majority.
00:16:28.180And, again, this is hardly an endorsement or anything like that.
00:16:30.780He seems to me – he strikes me as one of the least sociopathic and maybe one of the more intelligent figures.
00:16:38.120He's someone I – again, it's hard for me to hate him.
00:16:41.240So, anyway, I've gone on too long about Romney and the so-called man crush.
00:16:45.900But, anyway, what are your perspectives on him from abroad, Jonathan?
00:16:50.080Do you see what I'm saying or do you think of him more as a kind of plastic sociopath who's going to sell out, you know, everyone on his way to the top?
00:17:00.620No, there probably is a certain genuineness there that he comes across – he appears awkward a bit from my distance, although because the debates are not really televised over here, except in certain slivers, it's difficult for me to get a handle on the candidate, particularly the least ideological of the candidates, the most mainstream of the candidates.
00:17:24.220He strikes me as a regular person who's wandered into politics a bit, but then he must want to do it because he's had several campaigns for this job, hasn't he?
00:17:35.940He's tried for the nomination before, I understand.
00:17:38.080Oh, yes, his father ran for president as well and was the governor of Michigan.
00:17:43.700So, yeah, he's definitely from a political background.
00:17:47.000You know, but he also – it's hard to imagine Rick Santorum, who strikes me as rather dumb, to be frank, succeeding in anything but politics in the sense of he'll kind of represent the Christian right for people and they'll vote for him.
00:18:08.220But he's basically a bit of a dunce and a kind of weakling.
00:18:12.400I can't imagine him really running a corporation or something.
00:18:16.300Romney strikes me as highly competent.
00:18:20.440You know, anything he does, he makes it work.
00:18:23.860And, you know, again, there's something to be said for that.
00:18:27.940What do you think about, Jonathan, the kind of telegenics of the campaign?
00:18:35.160And, you know, I think there are two things that come to mind.
00:18:38.360First off, this just unending political marathon, you know, spectacle that Americans undergo.
00:18:49.980I mean, the very beginning of 2007, the campaign began, and in some ways it really hasn't ended.
00:19:50.140Have we entered, you know, the society of the spectacle?
00:19:55.320You know, what do you think of all these, the televisual aspect and the unending aspect of American politics?
00:20:03.100Yes, I think from a European perspective, it is the society of the spectacle, and it's existed long before Debord and these other left-wing thinkers came up with that phrase.
00:20:12.920I think it's sort of, I remember seeing a photograph of a cover of Debord's Society of the spectacle of people in one of those early sort of 3D cinemas with their spectacles on,
00:20:26.860you know, the ones that receive the three-dimensional image, and you need those spectacles on to watch a few of those debates, I think.
00:20:34.660Basically, it's a sort of, it's a marathon, it's a sort of marathon man, it's almost eugenic.
00:20:42.160They test these candidates to destruction, but American politics is much more individualistic than European politics.
00:20:49.420People tend to vote for a party in European terms, and they vote against other parties.
00:20:56.480They vote much less for the man, although the parties have become personified in the leader much more than they ever were.
00:21:03.640It's still largely party against party.
00:21:06.500The bulk of older voters in Europe would certainly represent more, identify much more with a party than with an individual.
00:21:14.580Whereas in American politics, it seems to be quite the reverse.
00:21:17.460The parties are cavernous barns, apart from certain pressure groups and local interest groups, and two sects.
00:21:24.580The feminist left and the Democratic Party and the Christian right in the Republican Party may be delivered the libertarians off to one side.
00:21:34.040The rest of the party seems to be extraordinarily unideological in European terms, and they make their minds up primarily on individual preference.
00:21:42.500And how you do this is to rubbish the individual credentials of fellow candidates.
00:21:48.760Hence, much of the effort and propaganda is negation.
00:21:52.120It's negative propaganda, as they all vilify each other, essentially.
00:21:55.840But these attack advertisements that cost a lot of money to produce and do have an effect in negating the charms of one candidate and obviously boosting the potential of another who hasn't been so vilified when his turn is coming pretty quick, given the punch and duty sort of nature of that type of advertising.
00:22:16.680So, it's a unique sort of slug it out type of politics from a European perspective.
00:22:24.860It generates a lot of heat, but whether it generates very much like, I'm not sure.
00:22:30.740Also, the outcome seems to be prior ordained.
00:22:34.640I mean, it seemed that in the dispute about who was to get the Democratic nomination last time, it appeared that Hillary Clinton would, you know, sort of do well and lantern blows.
00:22:52.400And it was quite obvious she was going to come in second from quite a long way out.
00:22:55.880And that's what occurred, just as it appears in this internal debate on the Republican side that Romney will come through in the end, possibly damaged enough that he will not be able to take Obama down.
00:23:09.720But that remains to be seen once you get the nomination and magic halo starts and they all sort of superficially unite behind you.
00:23:19.720But when the party unites around the premier candidate, there is an end to the endless sniping for the most part, particularly if they're clever in whom they choose as a running mate.
00:23:30.460And he may have a chance against Obama, although it doesn't look like it at the present time.
00:23:37.560He's got to win this one first, but he doubtless will.
00:23:40.600I don't think it's a very productive way to win, to run American politics, because it seems to have handy day for American politics to small caucuses of voters and to candidates who have limitless or almost limitless access to funds.
00:24:00.220And that, in turn, is something for which they can be criticised.
00:24:03.260One of the criticisms of Romney is the size of his war chest and the size of his personal fortune and his ability to outspend the other candidates.
00:24:12.840And I'm quite sure some of the votes for Santorum are populist votes, anti-system votes, votes against Romney because he's slicker and has a bigger machine and has more money to call on.
00:24:27.440And so far as I understand it, Santorum's efforts are financed, if not on a shoestring, then on a very reduced budget.
00:24:35.860Yes, I think he actually has located a billionaire of some sort.
00:24:41.020I'm forgetting his name at the moment.
00:24:43.220And Newt has actually a billionaire, even though he was more or less broke, or he's been more or less broke for months.
00:24:51.200He has a dual Israeli-American citizenship gambling billionaire.
00:25:00.680I don't know the answer to this question.
00:25:02.340I'm even curious about why someone like that would support Newt when clearly Israel is numero uno on his list of interests and passions.
00:25:16.280I don't understand even why he would support Newt.
00:25:18.800It seems like all of the GOP are quite pro-Israel.
00:25:22.780Maybe in some ways he just wants to keep Newt around as the kind of right flank to keep everyone in line and make sure there's no questioning of the relationship.
00:25:40.820And I think this goes for the whole of the globe, really.
00:25:45.180But I think it's, you know, you see it in America in a kind of heightened form in the sense of, you know, what does it mean to have these party identifications and to like a candidate and so on and so forth?
00:26:00.060You know, we've had 20, some 20 Republican debates, and I'm sure there'll be more.
00:26:06.800And there's probably, you know, infinity of, you know, ink and bytes that have been spilt talking about the minutiae, the small differences between the candidates and things like that.
00:26:22.640I remember I'll sometimes go to National Review online, which is the, you know, right-wing conservative website, and they'll have something called the Wonk Room.
00:26:33.920And they'll have all these people debating, again, minutiae policies, and this is going to work.
00:26:39.380This little triangulation is better than your little triangulation, so on and so forth.
00:26:43.920My always view is that all that stuff is nonsense.
00:26:48.300I think people vote on the basis of social mood and a kind of feeling in their head or maybe in their gut when they see a party or a candidate.
00:27:00.220It's very sub-rational or pre-rational.
00:27:04.020And I think if anyone actually thinks that these policies make a difference, I think they're fooling themselves.
00:27:10.100Because in some ways, if you have a general feeling about the way of the world, you know, if you think that the stock market's going up, you have a chance to be employed, things are looking up, you'll vote in the incumbent.
00:27:25.820And you'll probably rationalize it later.
00:27:28.360But, you know, the impetus was really a feeling in your gut when you saw something.
00:28:05.280You know, I think the mood was actually quite dark in this country in 2008, 2010.
00:28:10.820But I think it's actually kind of lifting a little bit in the sense that people are getting used to the new normal of lowered expectations.
00:28:18.760And I think that's one major reason why I agree with you.
00:28:23.140But what are some of your thoughts on this, of what I'm saying, is this kind of this irrational aspect of voting, the fact that it's almost like journalists and pundits take politics a little too seriously.
00:28:38.200They think that all these little policies and slight differences actually matter when what really matters is a mood or feeling, some, you know, sub-rational oomph that someone feels when they see the name of a person or a party on the ballot.
00:28:59.900What do you think about that, Jonathan?
00:29:01.620Yes, I think in the generic sense, you're right.
00:29:03.680I think the general voters, bearing in mind there's lots of independents and those who don't count themselves as either Republicans or Democrats now in elections who have to be won over.
00:29:14.020I think it's right for the generality.
00:29:15.640It may not be right for these party caucus types or a proportion of them who vote in these internal elections.
00:29:22.600They may be well aware of who they're voting for.
00:29:25.600And the fact that there's been such a sort of certain states in the South have gone for Gingrich because he seems to say what they want for them in their own language.
00:29:35.960And although he may not be a pure Southerner, he makes the Southern appeal, whereas Santorum gets a sort of generalised Christian conservative and anti-Republican establishment vote.
00:29:47.420Romney is the establishment candidate who trades on the fact that he's the only one who can beat Obama or at least go toe-to-toe with him in the election later this year.
00:29:57.940And Ron Paul is, in a sense, appealing to a specific constituency within the Republican Party.
00:30:06.840That's very different to general voting.
00:30:09.000I think in general voting, if there isn't a war in prospect, people just vote on circumstances of economic well-being and whether they think the candidate's competent enough to do the job.
00:30:21.460I think competence is a factor as well.
00:30:24.200I think part of the testing to destruction is the fact that you're electing a head of state, which in many European countries you're not, of course.
00:30:35.200There's a split between an honorific head of state in some countries in Scandinavia and in Britain, a member of a royal family, a sort of secularised, sort of bolted on and scaled down monarchy regardless, but one that does link with the ancestral past.
00:30:54.200All the power is in the hands of a prime ministerial figure, occasionally a chancellor and that sort of thing.
00:31:00.540But people vote for this figure, but they're not head of state and they're not head of the armed forces and they're not the state-worshipful object, which the American president is.
00:31:14.200And I think part of this testing the individual to destruction almost during the primaries and during the never-ending election campaign is to find somebody who seemed to be worthy to be head of state.
00:31:27.160Now, bearing in mind some of the people that have been elected into that post, you could say that that's all a bit laughable.
00:31:32.960But I think it is one of the objects of the exercise, it's to elect somebody who's a secular president and is a political leader and is a prime minister in European terms and is a chancellor of the Exchequer in British terms and the head of the armed forces and a sort of Republican monarch and head of the military industrial complex, all combined in one persona.
00:32:01.200And I think the fact that so much of the election seems to be about character and about whether the individual characters concerned have any is all part and parcel of that skew.
00:32:13.440So in some ways, it's an Olympic Games where they prove whether they've got the mettle to be the supreme leader.
00:32:20.060And that's why it's so individually focused on the candidate and the parties are just an amphitheater to test the individual rigor of one candidate as against another.
00:32:31.180It's like the parties provide a shell or a caucus around which these massive individual tests can take place.
00:32:39.140And that's how it strikes a European, whereas in European politics, for the most part, you have to include British politics in that.
00:32:47.020It's very small party caucuses and committees, many of them far from particularly democratic, decide on who's to stand and who's to go forward.
00:32:57.240And the people then judge the individual very much on their party banner rather than in terms of who is to be the personification of the state.
00:33:10.040I think in some ways when we look at someone like Bill Clinton or worse, you know, George Bush or something like that,
00:33:17.380I think people might think that, oh, you know, this is hardly some great man with wonderful character.
00:33:24.940But in some ways the American nation gets the president it deserves in the sense that I think most people who did elect him did see these people as representing them and as representing their country, the best parts of their country.
00:33:41.320Let's talk about some kind of bigger things.
00:33:44.040I think we've laid out in some ways how the system works and what democracy, how it functions, what it's about.
00:33:53.720What do you think are the prospects of a kind of a breakthrough within the system?
00:33:59.980That is – and I'm thinking of Ron Paul here in particular.
00:34:04.900And I poo-pooed him a little bit earlier on in this conversation about saying that I think his goal now is really to secure a sinecure for his son as the leader of the libertarians within the GOP and the conservative movement.
00:34:19.620That it's not a revolution, which is a word his followers certainly bandy about all the time.
00:34:26.940But at the same time, you know, I'd be wrong – I think it's wrong to completely dismiss Ron Paul.
00:34:33.540A, he's genuine, but B, he really does represent a serious threat.
00:34:39.820And, you know, whether he could – if he were elected, whether he could get anything done in Washington, that's another question.
00:34:45.840But let's say he could and he was elected.
00:34:49.620You know, he would directly challenge people now who are receiving trillions of dollars in federal funding in the sense of he would likely end the Federal Reserve.
00:35:03.380This is going up against the banking system, the world banking system.
00:35:07.660It's harder to pick a bigger enemy than that.
00:35:12.080You know, he would end the military-industrial complex.
00:35:14.660Again, this is kind of like the banking system with guns, you know, massive financial industry that, quite frankly, benefits from war.
00:35:35.080I think he – but he clearly does not have any kind of strong passions about the country.
00:35:40.040And so he would be ending foreign aid to Israel.
00:35:43.220And I'm one – I believe they need that foreign aid.
00:35:46.500So he would be going up against the big boys.
00:35:49.080I mean, I don't think we should diminish the fact that, at least in theory, Ron Paul is a serious threat to the system.
00:35:58.360So what do you think, Jonathan, about that kind of radical within the system and the possibilities of a breakthrough?
00:36:08.400You know, I think a lot of people in our movement almost think the system has to collapse under its own weight before we'll have that opportunity for a breakthrough.
00:36:16.940And I have to say I'm probably one of them.
00:36:20.980But what do you think about that prospect of a radical within the system, someone who kind of – he's able to function within it but then turns it inside out?
00:36:33.500What do you think of the prospects of that?
00:36:35.520Do you think Ron Paul is that kind of person?
00:36:37.760Or do you think we might actually even see a more radical system candidate in the future, like an openly white nationalist candidate?
00:36:48.320Or maybe an openly black nationalist or a Latino nationalist candidate?
00:36:52.500What do you think about this, about the prospects of the system – of someone, you know, turning the system inside out from within?
00:37:01.700I think Paul's candidacy is the most interesting candidacy.
00:37:05.100It's received very little attention over this side of the water in Europe.
00:37:09.220The British media tends to regard him as a renegade and a rogue candidate who's not really of any importance because he comes fourth out of four semi-perpetually, occasionally third, very, very occasionally second in these Western states, where a certain rugged individualism prospers, as you've made clear.
00:37:28.280And that's the basis for his successful sort of secondary position.
00:37:37.760Maybe he'll pick up a few states, like Wyoming, towards the end, close of the contest.
00:37:43.300But he is a revolutionary candidate in what he espouses.
00:37:46.320If you actually believe that what people espouse is of some importance, and it's not all snake or salesmanship, then he is the only revolutionary candidate on offer.
00:37:55.700I would probably vote Ron Paul if I had a vote in a state race in any of these districts, and I would do so because he's the only likely radical candidate to churn things up.
00:38:10.140And because from the rest of the world's point of view, America is so plugged into foreign affairs and foreign policy, from the American domestic audience's point of view, it's the part of the agenda that they know least about and are least interested in.
00:38:24.420But from the rest of the world's point of view, the American Federation is still the preeminent power on Earth, and therefore what it does is of supreme importance.
00:38:33.240And if he decoupled America from Israel by intent or by design or by semi-accident, depending, it would have a knock-on effect all over the world,
00:38:45.920because it would immediately reorient the politics in the Middle East, and it would immediately reorient the politics in the world.
00:38:53.600Without American backing, Israel would be forced further into a sort of negative isolationism, or it would have to basically make peace with the Palestinians and the Arabs around it,
00:39:04.660getting the best terms and the best deal that it could in the available circumstances.
00:39:09.680So whether you'd have a revolutionary outcome from such a change in course, in the recent meetings between Obama and Netanyahu, quite crucial differences were patched up.
00:39:22.160It is noticeable to me that Obama hardened his position during these caucuses of the pro-Israeli lobby on Capitol Hill.
00:39:30.200And Obama now appears to be saying that he is prepared to go to war against Iran if there is the attempt by the Iranians to build a nuclear weapon, but they haven't attempted to build one yet.
00:39:43.780This may come as a hostage to fortune, actually, because the Iranians will keep both options open until the ultimate degree.
00:39:50.600I think the Iranians have already decided, particularly as the winner of the internal hard-line dispute within Iran, witnessed their recent local elections,
00:40:01.420has been the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, rather than Ahmadinejad, the president.
00:40:07.300He's got a year still to run, but may now be a lame duck president and the powers with the supreme leader.
00:40:14.200I think they've decided to go for a bomb and to sustain the illusion as long as possible that their program is civil.
00:40:23.180Now, if this is the case, Obama has now locked himself into the possibility of an attack, even a joint Israeli-American attack,
00:40:32.060after prevaricating for about a year and a half and making it decidedly unclear as to whether he was prepared to go that extra mile or not.
00:40:41.400And this, given the equivocation over what the Israelis were demanding, now makes Obama look more like Clinton
00:40:52.820and more like some of the previous presidents, more like Bush, who didn't give the Israelis what they wanted in relation to an Iranian attack,
00:41:00.280but didn't say—but all of them have said publicly, until Obama prevaricated,
00:41:06.020that they would be prepared to attack in Iran arms with a nuclear weapon.
00:41:09.960But that's a very mixed message, in a way, because no one will know that Iran has a nuclear weapon until they test it.
00:41:17.880And once they've tested it, it will obviate an attack.
00:41:21.220But the only candidate of all of those on offer on either side who isn't prepared to attack Iran,
00:41:27.940even if they go for a nuclear weapon, is Paul.
00:41:30.800And that is a revolutionary position, an outsider's position in Washington, D.C.
00:41:35.860In relation to the Federal Reserve, he's asking for the entire American economy, which is now based on debt,
00:41:44.200to be restructured and to be replaced with a sort of an idealized libertarian sort of capitalist economy,
00:41:54.020the light of which probably couldn't exist in the real world now.
00:41:57.080In some ways, Paul is a fantasy candidate, but the very fact that he's prepared to get mainstream votes
00:42:05.680for putting forward propositions, which are regarded as fantastical by all of his contemporaries,