Calm Down, Paul Bearers

The Paul Bearers were in a frenzy yesterday over reports that Rep. Ron Paul had been excluded from an upcoming New Hampshire debate that was to be carried on Fox News. Let not your hearts be troubled, Paul Bearers:

WASHINGTON – Ron Paul is steamed about being excluded from a New Hampshire debate scheduled to be televised by Fox News.

"They are scared of me and don't want my message to get out, but it will," Paul said of Fox News Network. "They are propagandists for this war and I challenge them on the notion that they are conservative."

The challenge got some attention on a slow Internet news day yesterday, with many websites still carrying the story. However, not all is what it appears.

There is no debate.

No one is invited.

It was canceled.

Somehow, Ron Paul missed the memo.

There is no New Hampshire GOP presidential debate scheduled for Jan. 6. The event was officially canceled three weeks ago. Ron Paul was, indeed, invited, but never committed to attending before the event was canceled because of the close proximity with the ABC event.

I'm always surprised at the nearly religious frenzy that the Paulians possess regarding their guy (read this if you don't believe me). I reminds me very much of another quasi-religion: Global Warmism. Both have adherents who are dedicated to a fault to promoting their message. Both are okay with the idea that the nation or the world will be destroyed if we don't embrace their gospel. And both religions have a sacred document, a High Priest, a God and a Savior.

In Global Warmism, the High Priest is Al Gore, the sacred document "An Inconvenient Truth", God is Gaia, or Mother Earth, and the Savior is you, since only you can save her. In Paul Bearerism the sacred document is the Constitution, and the High Priest, God and Savior are all Ron Paul, since he is the focus of their worship and the only one who can save America. He's also of superior intellect to all of us, according to this guy.

The simplicity of Paul's message disarms his critics, who, like Kristol, rather than stand and debate, denigrate and discount the candidate. Though his message is simple and straight forward, his philosophy is way beyond the grasp of his critics.

I take politics seriously, but I don't see any candidates who are the Second Coming of anything.

The Paul Bearers are threatening to go third party and throw the election to Hillary if their guy doesn't win the GOP nomination. Nice threat, but Paul doesn't have that level of support from GOP voters. A lot of his support is coming from anti-war lefties who are enthused about his stand on that one single issue and are not so enthused about the crop of Democrats. They also have a large group of young, independent voters, who historically go to the polls in very small numbers. No amount of enthusiasm seems to change that from year to year. Remember the year of the "youth vote" in 2000? They didn't show up on election day.

Besides that, if Michael Bloomberg goes third party he'll take a lot more support from the Democrats than Paul will from the Republicans. It'll be a wash with a slight favoring of the GOP.