On many matters of national policy we tend to agree with Congressman Ron Paul, and even when we disagree we respect his point of view — so we must respectfully disagree with Paul’s criticism and boycott of the Newsmax-Donald Trump debate.
Ever since Trump’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2011, wherein he said that Paul had “no chance” at winning the Republican nomination for president or at beating President Barack Obama, the two have been at odds and Congressman Paul’s decision to skip the debate appears to be the latest round in that feud.
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Media bias and speaking in unfriendly forums is nothing new to Paul and when the idea of a Trump-moderated debate surfaced we had frankly hoped that the libertarian congressman would enter the lion’s den and take Trump on.
We think Paul’s well-thought-out principled positions on the economy, national defense, and the Constitution sell better than Donald Trump’s mixture of establishment economics and populist rants against Obama any day of the week.
But Paul’s decision to skip the Newsmax-Trump debate brings up a larger question if, as Paul put it, the event is beneath the dignity of the office of president and Trump is some kind of a false GOP deity, why should any of the Republican candidates participate?
Frankly from our perspective the same could, and has been said of most of the other Republican presidential debates.
For the most part, the debates have been run by hostile left-wing journalists or other self-appointed experts as publicity stunts and ratings-makers for the networks and sponsoring organizations. They have not been serious opportunities for the candidates to answer the questions upon which most GOP primary voters will make their decision.
So what’s the difference with the Newsmax debate? Trump is at least as expert on economic policy and probably a lot less hostile than the panels and moderators of the other debates.
And let’s face it, Donald Trump has a following — people will watch the debate for the same reason they sit in the fourth turn at a NASCAR race; they hope to see some fireworks.
The Newsmax-Donald Trump debate will bring in a new audience of die-hard Trump watchers who like the real estate mogul’s brash comments and unorthodox perspective on life and politics and this may very well be a new group of voters and a new market for conservative ideas — what can be wrong with that?
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