FOX will be holding a republican forum/debate on Jan. 6. But Ron Paul isn't invited.
Fergus Cullen, chairman of the New Hampshire State Republican Committee, confirmed Sunday evening to the Tribune that, yes, there will be a televised Fox News presidential candidate forum on Jan. 6, and yes, Rep. Ron Paul was not invited when the other candidates were a week or so ago.So the only anti-war republican candidate gets snubbed while war enthusiasts Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Romney, and Thompson get invitations. Could it be because Paul is a "fringe" candidate with "no chance" of winning? Not even FOX believes that. According to their own Dec. 14 poll of NH primary voters:
"My understanding is that five candidates to that point had been offered spots but the event is still coming together," Cullen said.
Ron Paul 8%Ron Paul is getting four times as many votes as Grandpa Fred, who is only barely beating superacist Tom Tancredo, who isn't even running anymore. Paul has another one of his wacky theories about why FOX is snubbing him:
Fred Thompson 2%
Tom Tancredo 1%
Ron Paul said the decision to exclude him from a debate on Fox News Sunday the weekend before the New Hampshire Primary is proof that the network "is scared" of him.Word is that Paul supporters plan to hold a rally Jan. 6, boycott FOX sponsors, and flood FOX and local newspapers with calls, letters, and emails (you can email FOX at yourcomments@foxnews.com).
"They are scared of me and don't want my message to get out, but it will," Paul said in an interview at a diner here. "They are propagandists for this war and I challenge them on the notion that they are conservative."
I've been struck by how much support Paul has online. If you check out the news & politics page on YouTube, Paul videos often occupy many of the top spots, and he has had unprecedented success raising money online. He's the closest thing to a netroots candidate the right has generated — he's a lot like the racist republican version of Howard Dean.
What this says to me is that a lot of young, anti-war republicans are driving the Paul candidacy. The republican party, by chaining itself to the sinking ship of conservatives and evangelicals, has completely alienated the youth vote. They lost them on Iraq, stem cells, the environment, Terry Schiavo, Mexicans, gays, education, healthcare, the economy — you name it. I can't imagine what it must be like to be a young republican who is against the war and have to listen to his party's candidates fighting it out over who can be the most homophobic, racist, anti-science, insurance-denyingist, warmongerist candidate of all.
I love hearing Paul's full-throated opposition to the war, and the fact that it's coming from a republican is even more notable — I wish more democratic candidates were as clear and passionate as Paul and would call a clusterfuck a clusterfuck and demand an immediate troop withdrawal instead of trying to earn "tough on defense" points from a dwindling number of pro-war voters who would never vote for a democrat anyway.
However, no one should forget that Paul is a conservative republican. His stances on other issues, in keeping with failed conservative ideology and worship of the "free" market, are incredibly, sometimes laughably misguided. Like every republican candidate this election, the more voters get to know the candidate, the less they like them, whether it's discovering Giuliani's personal life, Grandpa Fred's stupidity, Romney's shifting positions, Huckabee's cluelessness, or McCain's obliviousness. It should be interesting to see if Paul's candidacy begins to suffer when his supporters learn that he does not "accept" evolution, has a history of racist comments either by or attributed to him, and wants to abolish or privatize almost every government function and department while pulling out of every international organization and treaty, including the UN and NATO. If you think a country run by a government is trouble, just wait until you see one run by corporations.
Still, it should be an embarrassment to all republicans that their party and official propaganda network is afraid to allow their lone anti-war candidate to speak. The war should be debated endlessly by every American. I think every citizen of this country has a responsibility to wake up every day and ask themselves whether we should be fighting this war that is supposedly being waged on our behalf and, through our tax dollars, with our support.
Paul wants to have that debate within the republican party, which is why the party and FOX want so desperately to silence him. They know that if Paul's candidacy got half the attention it deserves, it would siphon off a significant number of republican votes and possibly trigger a complete re-evaluation of what it means to be a republican. Many Paul supporters were shocked when they saw how FOX treated Paul during their last debate, causing many of them to realize, seemingly for the first time, that maybe, just maybe, FOX is not as "fair and balanced" as they claim to be. If republicans stop taking their propaganda meds and start asking real questions, who knows what kind of bedlam could ensue.
So FOX and the republican party are falling in line with Rush Limbaugh, asserting that no "real" republican opposes the war. Since Paul opposes the war, he becomes the crazy anti-war uncle who no longer gets invited over for Thanksgiving dinner where he might disrupt the warmongering with his ranting and raving. Doesn’t he know that if he was the pro-war closeted gay pervert pedophile uncle, they'd probably let him carve the turkey?
Like I said before Fixed Noise would like nothing more than to see the half weasel half gerbel with a lisp burrow his way into the whitehouse - if this was halloween I would be Ghouliani - I mean serious it makes me vomit everytime I see him kiss his 20 year looking wife - can you imagine making love to a man who has the appeal of a hunched over desert rodent.
Republicans "Do as i say. Period!"