Paul’s success matters because no matter who wins in 2012 they will find their policy options tightly constrained by the movement he has helped to construct. A potential Republican President will find himself in a particular bind. Just look at what’s happened to John Boehner. And coming in Paul’s wake is Rand Paul, a far more telegenic character who has mastered the Neo-Confederate synergy of Ante-Bellum Dixie economics and old-tyme religion. The organization Ron Paul has built could reach a tipping point under Rand’s influence.

For rationalist Republicans struggling to regain some relevance in the party Ron Paul’s success is particularly instructive. Instead of engaging in the contortions that created John McCain’s 2008 “success” in the nominating campaign, we might be better off repeating the apparent failure of 2000, following such failures with carefully grassroots coalition-building. The White House is a hollow prize for anyone who can’t influence the base.

Politics is not about winning elections, it is about wielding power. Paul offers some valuable lessons in politics that rationalists could put to use.

Most people think that Mitt Romney will eventually walk away with the Republican nomination.  But compare Romney to Ron Paul — you couldn’t find a starker contrast in terms of the kind of politicians these two are.  Romney, like the vast majority of politicians, cares primarily about winning elections, and his fungibility over the years is all the proof you need.  You certainly cannot say the same thing about Ron Paul, at least at the presidential level, regardless of whether you agree with him.  I honestly don’t even think the guy wants to be President; he’d seem to be more content being the contemporary father of an old philosophy that gains more and more influence in the coming years.

Libertarians have plenty to be encouraged about these days.

None of this, of course, prevents the brainwashed masses from making an unparalleled public display of grief.

I have spoken with staff who migrated from the Ron Paul campaign to Gary Johnson’s camp. One thing I have been told is that they are frustrated that many libertarians in the Ron Paul camp equate being a libertarian with supporting the Paul clan. Many supporters of Ron Paul find that they can only support Ron Paul and Rand Paul, and that all the other candidates are not worthy of their attention. This past week, the FrumForum mailbox has been getting angry emails about how we’ve recently attacked Ron Paul. We’ve critiqued other libertarians before, but when you attack a person’s political savior, they take it a bit more personally.

He goes on to cite Kevin Williamson’s report [blocked by paywall, sorry] on the nature of the Ron Paul supporter:

[This] much they [Ron Paul fans] are certain of: The United States of America is an “empire,” the Federal Reserve is the capitol citadel of wickedness in the modern world, and Ron Paul — Doctor Paul — is “the one man in America who is willing to tell the truth,” “the one man who truly cannot be bought,” “the one man for the people,” and, in the Paul campaign’s own fevered imagination, “the one who will stop the spending, save the dollar, create jobs, bring peace — the one who will restore liberty. Ron Paul: The one who can beat Obama — and restore America now.”

He concludes:

One project that libertarians may want to consider is how to give the libertarians in the Republican party prominent voices that are not called Ron Paul. These voices would not have to make evasions on issues such as whether the Confederacy was a bad idea. Then the debate over whether we need a night-watchmen state can be done without Paul’s considerable baggage.

My take is this.  Ron Paul supporters think they actually have a chance to make some real libertarian noise this year, which is understandable given that Paul really might win Iowa in a few weeks.  But Libertarianism cannot afford a rift right now.  For the movement to eventually gain support of enough of a percentage of American voters to be taken seriously, it has to stand united behind one candidate that can a) promote and sell the philosophy, and b) garner the support that demonstrates this is a viable political alternative to what we have today.   Ron Paul, as a candidate, has some serious flaws — electability being the most prominent, in my view.  But the better Ron Paul does this time around, the better for Libertarianism as a whole down the road, whoever the standard-bearer may then be.

For other takes on this, see Andrew Sullivan’s endorsement, David Frum’s response, and Connor Friedersdorf’s response to Frum.

Look at North Korea and South Korea.  These are the same people, distinct only in type and quality of government.  This is perhaps the starkest example of just how much who’s in charge matters.

UPDATE: Who’s willing to bet that this guy is going to be any better than his father?

Not me.

• Europe: This literally scares the crap out of me.  There’s a ton of Italian debt infecting European banks right now.  If that debt starts tanking — the result of an Italian default or the collapse of the Eurozone — the European banks holding it will likely go with them.  If those banks go, our banks might very well be next.  Keith Hennessy lays it out as good as I’ve read so far.  Without a doubt the most important economic X factor hanging over our heads right now.

• Employment: I’ve voiced my skepticism of short term policies designed to boost employment.  Getting the country working again is crucial to getting our economy growing at a solid pace, but I don’t want to sacrifice our longterm prosperity in the process.  I can’t help but think that getting ourselves geared for the longrun and, in so doing, reducing American uneasiness about the future is the best policy.  The combination of simplifying the tax code, smart Wall St. regulation, and putting our fiscal house in order is most likely to instill confidence and empower Americans to start growing the economy again from the bottom up.  If we have to build a bridge and fix our roads, let’s do it — but not under the banner of creating jobs.  A bridge might be built either way, but I bet you ($10,000?) it’ll be  a more useful one if its primary purpose isn’t to create jobs.  Let’s create the best possible atmosphere for real, longterm jobs to come into existence organically.

• The weaponization of the Constitution — This is an old theme on this blog (and in American history, unfortunately) but it’s always worth repeating.  Too often has our Constitution been harnessed as an affirmative circumvention of the democratic process.  Too often do we seek a constitutional short cut that robs the country of democratic debate.  As I’ve said before, I prefer slow but organic change from the bottom up to swift and radical change from the top down…even if I agree with the policy at issue.  Whatever the particular policy is, and unless constitutional rights are clearly violated, it will always come second to progress through democratic debate in the form of laws being passed, amended, repealed, and eventually perfected by us, rather than the courts.  Unfortunately, this will likely remain a gripe of mine for decades.

• Normalcy Bias: A term used by a friend of mine, and I find it to be a proper diagnosis of our national condition of rejecting common sense policy changes for fear of being too “radical.”  Getting rid of tax expenditures/deductions is a good example of this.  To quote Andrew Sullivan, “[r]emoving every single deduction in one heave would do more to empower market-based decisions in the economy and to throw lobbyists out of work than any other single measure. It’s the most important, simple, productive move we can make right now . . . .”  Other examples include the continued promotion of employer provided health insurance, any discussion of steep cuts for some agencies (such as the DOD), as well as reassessing the utility of others (DOE?), legalizing marijuana, etc.

• Income Inequality: This concept is politically charged, but I think everyone should recognize that stagnant lower/middle class wages in the face of exponential growth at the top of the income distribution is not a positive thing.  The challenge, of course, is what to do about it.  Cries to raise taxes on the rich is not a solution to the problem, though income inequality might be a justification for additional taxes on higher earners in order to cure our fiscal condition, which is a separate issue.  I see income inequality more as an education problem, as we are not supplying the highly skilled workers that advances in technology and globalization have demanded.  We all know that lower skilled jobs are being shipped to cheaper pastures overseas forcing the American laborer to change course.  This is nothing but global economic efficiency, and it results in cheaper products for us.  College is not for everyone, as we still need welders and the like, but I imagine that acquiring practical trade skills in fields such as engineering and the hard sciences is a wise investment.

• Our Budget Deficit and National Debt: This is a massive problem, and the fact that this will not affect us until some time down the road is a scary way of looking at the issue.  So is pointing out the fact that American debt is still low risk.  Putting aside the argument that we shouldn’t casually be borrowing our way to debt levels upward of $16 trillion — even if yields on American debt are still low — let’s keep in mind that yields on Greek bonds were doing just fine until they weren’t. Germany too suddenly found itself with its own bond auction issues a few weeks ago.  People are worried.   Investor confidence is fueled by emotion, and emotion is steered by perception. We need to paint a picture of fiscal responsibility in order to definitively keep bond vigilantes at bay.  We certainly aren’t Greece in terms of fiscal recklessness, but it’d be wise not to hold ourselves up against that standard.