What Ron Paul Wants - Blog: Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | May 15, 2012 | Comments (0)

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For the last month, Beltway political scribes have been twisting their knickers trying figure out what the heck Ron Paul is after. Yesterday, after weeks of trench warfare in state GOP delegate conventions from which he has emerged with a hefty pile of delegates, Paul puzzled them further by announcing that he would not be spending money to campaign in upcoming primary states (including the big prizes of Texas and California). OMG!

To unravel the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, I can think of no better source than the oddest duck of American religious politics, Doug Wead. Wead was once a pentecostal pastor and his great claim to fame is that he ran faith outreach for George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign, wherein he taught young George W. Bush the ropes--the rest being history. On the strength of his Bush connections, Wead proceeded to fashion himself into that thing known as a "presidential historian," gaining particular notoriety for having secretly taped conversations with W. in 1998 and using them as the basis for a book titled George Bush: Man of Integrity. Remember George Washington's hagiographer, Parson Weems? We have Parson Wead. 

For this election cycle the good parson put aside his other activities to serve as a senior advisor to the Paul campaign, in which capacity he writes a blog titled Doug Wead The Blog. Never one to hide his light under a bushel, Wead provides the best insight I know into what the campaign is about. He's been tracking the ins and outs of the state convention skirmishes. Here are two bits of what he had to say yesterday. First:

Finally, the lights were turned out and the Ronulans were sent home, exhausted and weary, unaware that they had probably just made history and put their man into nomination at Tampa.  For the Romneyites, the unthinkable had happened.  It is not done yet, but Ron Paul may very well see his name entered into nomination in Tampa.

This last weekend was perhaps the most mean spirited of all.  One has to wonder, if Mitt Romney has won the nomination, why can’t they communicate that message to the state conventions?  The fact is that something bigger is happening than the nomination of a candidate.  The Republican Party is being remade in the image of Ron Paul, the Thomas Jefferson of our generation. The Ronulan invasion continues.  It is not a conspiracy. It is organic. It is natural. And it cannot be stopped.

And:

By ending the primary battles, Ron Paul is signalling to the field that  this is the end of hostilities.  In primaries you end up tearing each other down.  It is millions of dollars spent on negative advertising. In caucuses, as brutal as they may be, you change the Republican Party, you empower the new and challenge the established.

The delegate strategy is working.  That is the way we will impact the platform in Tampa.  That is the way we will begin the process of change.  It is through the caucuses that we are attracting youth, like the twenty-one year old woman recently elected to the national committee from Maine or the Ron Paul Hispanics or the Independents who have never been involved in party politics.

Whatever you think of Ron Paul qua Thomas Jefferson, Wead's drift is not hard to get. Paul's is a campaign of ideas. Why waste resources on primaries when you've already got enough delegates to leverage changes in the party platform in exchange for not having your name placed in nomination. Now that's not so hard to understand, is it?

Topics: Politics, Election
Tags: ron paul

Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college's Program on Public Values. He joined Trinity College after working as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He writes on news media coverage of religious subject matter.
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