2012 Iowa Caucus results – Ron Paul: 26,036
2016 Iowa Caucus results – Rand Paul: 8,481
After Iowa in 2012, Ron Paul took his fight for the nomination all the way to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Rand Paul dropped out two days after his Iowa showing.
The Liberty Movement is a shard of the Tea Party movement that grew out of Ron Paul’s insurgent 2008 presidential campaign, this we all know. It’s a combination of Old Right foreign policy, strict constitutional adherence, and a concern about monetary policy.
Ron Paul, whose career spanned from Nixon to Obama, made a name for himself on the presidential stage by challenging Rudy Giuliani directly on terrorism in a 2007 debate. From that moment came a movement that has somehow existed both inside and outside the Republican Party simultaneously. Also what came with it was a dedicated group of young supporters that, in 2010, elected libertarian devotee Justin Amash to the House of Representatives in Michigan, and Ron’s son Rand to the US Senate in Kentucky. Liberty candidates rode the greater anti-establishment, anti-Washington, and anti-Obama Tea Party wave in 2010 to victory.
In 2012, Ron Paul once again ran for president and this is where our story really begins. While Rick Santorum is considered the second-place finisher in a lot of media narratives, the real second place finisher was Ron Paul. He fought tooth and nail from caucus state to caucus state and earned an impressive showing. After 2012, his endorsement mattered.
His first campaign morphed into the Campaign for Liberty, an organization that today still works for libertarian Republican principles. The elder Paul’s ability to attract young voters caught the eye of many, who began to suggest Republicans come to grips with some of Paul’s philosophy as a way to broaden the party. The House Freedom caucus in Washington has become a vehicle of power for former Paul acolytes like Amash, Massie, Randy Weber and others that Paul has supported. His son is part of a rump group of constitutionalists with the likes Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in the Senate.
As we approached this presidential contest, hordes of supporters flocked to Rand Paul’s presidential announcement. Polls had him strong. The press began to hail a new kind of Republican who could help the party reach out to minorities and soften some of the harder edges of the Party’s recent past in both foreign policy and criminal justice. With Rand Paul, the Revolution was about to become a real movement.
So what happened? I’ve been spitballing this “libertarian moment” many claimed the GOP was entering with Paul (and to a lesser extent, Cruz) running for president. Paul’s presidential campaign was an immense failure and the blame within the liberty movement has been divided. Some feel Rand ran away from the core of his father’s beliefs, infamously epitomized by Paul signing the Tom Cotton Letter to Iran. He seemed to be trying to convince libertarians they needed to be more Republican rather than Republicans needing to be more libertarian. Some feel Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump charismatically usurped the anti-establishment energy from the more dour Kentucky senator. Others point to money, that he couldn’t compete with the establishment checkbooks being opened for Jeb Bush, among others. Paul himself lacked the charisma and dynamism of his competitors.
But, the Liberty Movement was never really a movement to begin with. It’s reputation was stronger than it’s actual size and ability. We saw this with Rand’s Iowa bluff, telling the world his new young voters would bring him to glory. It failed.
For the last three years the Liberty Movement has been punching far above its weight. Most of this is due to the unusual circumstances around Ron Paul’s very strong 2012 campaign. 2012 is probably the weakest Republican field ever to run for president. The frontrunner was the originator of Obamacare (by another name), the early Iowa favorite was Michele Bachmann (!!!) and the “second place” finisher, Rick Santorum, had lost his reelection in spectacular fashion six years earlier. The South Carolina winner at one point took a cruise in during the campaign. Despite Paul’s controversial history within the party, he began to attract a lot of support from people who were not libertarian but were anti-establishment. The 2016 field, meanwhile, is one of the strongest in recent memory. Anti-establishment tea partiers have found more natural homes in the Cruz, Trump, and Carson campaigns.
The Liberty Movement was really a Ron Paul movement and without Ron Paul, it’s not really a movement anymore. It was a political insurgency, and like any insurgency, eventually one of the two parties will swallow up its most potent issues. We have seen Republican candidates talk about auditing the Fed, we’ve seen senators and congressman in the GOP begin to question entangling international interventions and we’ve seen Republicans begin to rethink the party’s past support for harsh drug laws.
In some ways, the success of the issues the Liberty Movement has raised has helped weaken it. As of now, the Liberty Movement is simply a minority faction within the Republican Party fighting for a seat at the table. It has elected noble fighters, such as the aforementioned Amash and Massie and Senator Paul, but Rand himself bit off more than he could chew in 2016 and it should be a harsh lesson to all of us who want constitutional liberty, limited government, and true freedom – we aren’t what we think we are.
Now, this might be a downer, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. The only way to grow now is organically through reasoned debate and action. Several liberty governors have popped up, most notably Matt Bevin in Kentucky. We must work now to elect executives to show Americans that the principles of personal freedom, economic liberty, and property rights can bring prosperity to the country. I think everyone sort of slowed down while Rand Paul was running for president and looking so good early on, as if victory was closer at hand than it actually was. This is also not to downplay the contributions at a local level of Liberty activists who have joined local and statewide committees to try to open the party to new thinking and new ideas.
Rand’s failure means a true Liberty Movement must get past the name Paul, even if one is still its leader.
20 comments
[…] accomplish. This turn of events has caused many of us in the liberty movement to despair, and even question the viability of the movement […]
[…] accomplish. This turn of events has caused many of us in the liberty movement to despair, and even question the viability of the movement itself. This must stop. What, did some of us think this would be easy? That the […]
Yeah. Now who do we vote for?
A lot of truth in this. Death by a thousand cuts. Too many anti-establishment alternatives in different flavors. People say liberty…until it means they will lose some stuff. But the conclusion hits the nail on the head. It needs to be more than a cult. Unfortunately, political movements are often personality driven. A leader makes the intangible tangible.
I’m struggling with who to support … Cruz seems a better fit but I’ve having a hard time getting across the finish line with him. I’m not even sure why.
Because he has little interest in reducing the federal government (but neither does anyone else running) and he is too calculating. Makes me wonder, “what is he up to?” And I don’t have an answer to that either.
Now that Rand’s out, I think Cruz is your logical second-choice. David Dickinson suggests Cruz is “too calculating. Makes me wonder, ‘what is he up to?'” What he’s “up to” is trying to become President. Everyone one of them is calculating what that takes. Every. One. The question is whether their record shows they’ll deliver when they get in office. Cruz has the best record on that.
Cruz is also the only one whose record indicates he might at least take a sincere stab at David’s second issue — reducing the federal government, especially its power to force unpopular and unconstitutional law on we the people. First, Cruz’s career — up to first running for office in 2012 — was as a litigator and Texas Solicitor General supervising hundreds of employees, fighting for 1st and 2nd Amendment rights. If Cruz is elected, you are not only going to see some stellar conservative judge nominations for the Supreme Court — a YUGE act — but I will wager you are going to see a Department of Justice that brings skilled and unremitting LAWFARE to bear on many, many progressive judicial over reaches.
Those things alone would be a big first step toward at least taming the Leviathan. Then the harder step of reducing its size. I’m an old one who hoped Reagan would eliminate the Department of Education, so I know any reduction will be fought tooth and nail by a broad swath of the population, not to mention our own party. Still, you have to start somewhere.
I’d like to think you are correct. Maybe it is the suddenness of Rand’s departure. I didn’t see that coming and thought he’d stick it out to the end like his father (darn that Senate re-election) and, to this point, I didn’t have to consider who I will vote for. Now I’ve got to go through the hand-wringing gyrations. Oh, fun.
While you’re wringing hands, don’t forget which candidate took on the ethanol subsidy — in IOWA. And won. 😀 Trump actually called for it to be increased.
We’re gonna need some of Cruz’s chutzpah to take on entitlements, too.
Economic issues , specifically the reality that if we are to solve the nations most pressing entitlement reforms, sorely needed, then the Liberty movement must be much more forceful at pressing the point all entitlement programs must be dramatically reformed the sooner the better .
Often times I use the phrase ” we are not going to get out of this until everyone admits and accepts each of us will sacrifice “. Americans want smaller government and spending cut….until it hits the programs they themselves get some benefit from. That selfish attitude must change.
Bob Shannon
Totally wrong Chris. The liberty movement, partly through the leadership of Ron Paul and partly through the courage of thousands of individuals across this country has helped to develop a new generation of liberty minded leaders at the state and local levels all across the country. I am friends with too many of them not to know better. They have helped to revolutionize the Republican Party of Virginia and I know full well it is not unique to Virginia. The liberty movement has done and continues to do an incredible service to Virginia and to our country. I was involved before the current incarnation of the liberty movement began but I’m proud to call them friends and fellow warriors.
I hope your right … I’m just not seeing the political success that justify calling it a movement.
I was a Ron paul supporter, Now I am a Trump supporter,
Trump is Not Perfect but he is libertarian on many issues, he is pro manufacturing ,anti-interventionist,etc
I dont Trust Cruz, has more donations from W st to his campaign than Hillary, he tells NY donors 1 thing, us another, I want a Trump/Rand ticket to have a good balance, most of my Libertarian friends are for Trump, the movement just morphed to be more Nationalist
Trump stands for everything Ron Paul was against, imo. Trump is all bluff and bluster but he’s been long apart of the elite crust of this country and will continue to represent that class. Its a joke that anyone who cares about peace, property and individual liberty would back an American Berlusconi.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ron-paul-donald-trump-a-dangerous-person/
Sadly you dont get it, hope you will 1 day, Trump is what we need right now
What does that even mean? This guy has never been a conservative in his entire life, how are you all being blinded by this Elmer Gantry? The last guy who ran on a vague one sentence slogan sure worked out
Agreed.
Meet Bernie Sanders, the new leader of the Ron Paul movement.
that’s not entirely wrong
There are other liberty groups. There is the RLC (Republican Liberty Caucus), the House Freedom Caucus, and many individual Republicans whose top priority is liberty.
I think there is a cranky old grandpa movement – first Ron Paul and now Bernie Sanders.