And the Republican primary gong show goes on…
Arena Asks: As Rep. Ron Paul rises in the Iowa polls he’s facing more scrutiny for newsletters once published under his name. Parts of the 1990s-era publications are suffused with paranoia, racial bigotry and support for the period’s violent militia movements. Paul denies authorship of the offending passages, though in his 1996 congressional run he admitted to writing some of them. Assuming others did write the material, the newsletters still went out under Ron Paul’s name. What does this say about the company he keeps? And if Paul didn’t have full control over content, does it raise doubts about his managerial/executive abilities?
My Answer:If Paul disavows the bigoted words, ripping off his inquisitor’s microphone isn’t going to help him prove it. In fact, anger over being asked for accountability will serve Paul about as well as Herman Cain’s (remember him?) angry responses to women who accused him of sexual abuse. And since racism and sexism are joined at the head, that’s a better analogy than it might appear on first blush.
Historically, underneath American democratic values of liberty and justice and a fair shake for all, a dark underbelly of greed and selfishness justified by xenophobia has always existed. Only Ron Paul can tell us which side of that equation he’s on. The written evidence is damning. If Paul wants voters to believe his disavowals, he should welcome the microphone. He’ll have talk a lot more about what he does believe, and he must be fully, openly, visibly accountable both for what he has done and whose company he has kept over the years.
My prediction? The next gong in the Republican primary will ring for Ron Paul.
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Gloria Feldt is the author of No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change the Way We Think About Power. Interested in learning more tips and power tools that have worked for other women? Buy the book here. Engage Gloria for a Speech or Workshop here. |
I agree with you that Ron Paul should be handling the newsletter affair in a calmer manner. However, it is very understandable that the way it is discussed in the media is upsetting to him. Ron Paul has told us for 40 years what his position is on race and it has never changed.
If you bother to look at the record of what Ron Paul has actually written and said on racial issues throughout his political career it becomes very clear that the views expressed in the newsletters in question are not his and never were. His personal philosophy is squarely anti-racist (and anti-sexist for that matter), because it does not give merit to racial classifications in the first place.
It would bode well for any political commentator to do the research on this instead of immediately drawing the same false conclusions some lazy witers came up with before her.