RonPaulforPresident2008.com Blog

It was just recently that I heard Dr. Paul, in an interview, let the door swing open just a bit on the idea of a third party candidacy. He seemed almost to be entertaining the idea of a third party run. I think this would be a terrible thing to do. I don’t think it would work and I fear it would give the Presidency to McCain who I believe is the most dangerous candidate out there. I believe the press would feel very vindicated, at that point, for marginalizing RP at the debates and for asking mostly "Are you planning a third party run".
I believe what is taking place now, with Ron Paul delegates at the state conventions is the correct approach and that this course will win back the Republican Party in time. The Republican Party in its earlier incarnation (with a Jeffersonian platform) is what this RP Revolution stands for, so why even consider a third party approach? when you consider how that would alienate so large a percentage of politically involved Republicans who are ripe for conversion to the Ron Paul doctrin. Even if there were some chance of success as a third party candidate (which defies reasonable odds) and then a new party formed, at some point the Republicans would just move back toward its own conservative/libertarian views and that would crush this new Conservative-Libertarian party again.
It seems much wiser to take over an existing structure than to try building a new one, at least when it comes to political-social structures. The nuts and bolts of a political party, which is the functional aspect of the machine, have nothing to do at all with ideology, just power. These people and their networks represent the “plants and equipment” of the political industry. It is this structure that allow movements to bear fruit, which can propel a candidate and/or ideas to become household debates, and which can compel a topic to the forefront of the political scene. So the hijacking of the platform and the redirecting of the party's course should be the quickest way to affect the direction of this country. If we have to build a new ship it may never even leave the dock. Hell we may have to first build the dock! The only way I see to succeed is the way we are currently going. Even if one accepts the premise that a new party is inevitable, it seems just as obvious that a new political party, like a new church, would be best brought into fruition by a large faction splitting from an existing church or political party. In this way, much of the apparatus is brought along. As yet though, I do not see a serious divide within the Republican Party structure, i.e., the nuts and bolts of the Republican Party. Rather what I see with RP supporters is just disenfranchised former republicans and worse yet Republican leaning citizens, non of whom have likely been party activists before. Many of today’s RP activists are going to get jobs and start families within the next four years, and so without a structured network or machine all this current excitement could just evaporate; them what?

Four years from now a split convention seems possible and at that point I believe that the power would reside with the new conservative-libertarian-constitutionalist, (whateverthehellweare) wing of the party. I can imagine “that power” moving this grotesquely off course ship towards calmer seas. That seems, to me, the likely way to success.

This is my opinion, let me know what you think…..