There’s a story at the Washington Post website describing GOP candidate Ron Paul’s supporters. They’re younger, more secular, and more dedicated than other Republicans. That they’re disproportionately younger suggests to me that they’re not from movement families (that is, they’re not from old and longstanding libertarian households). Paul, to his credit, has attracted an energetic, young following.
At the same time, this also means that these followers are ill-suited to take a long view of politics, Republican or libertarian.
Some libertarians, notably Brian Doherty, have tried to reassure skeptical members of movement families that Paul’s newsletters, etc., shouldn’t be held against him. (Doherty is writing a book about Paul, having previously written an exhaustive history of libertarianism.) Doherty means to soothe:
I can assure any old libertarian worried about old libertarian movement business that it is the good things about Ron Paul that have won him the support and love he has won, and that this old business is irrelevant to them, and thus irrelevant to the actual important political and cultural story about Ron Paul now.
See, from Doherty, Why I Don’t Think the Ron Paul Newsletters Are Very Important .
Doherty writes to those of us within the family, so to speak. We would reply that we like Paul well enough personally, but we also see that some of Paul’s views aren’t traditionally libertarian at all. Mixed in are far-right notions outside of traditional libertarianism (or opportunity conservatism, for that matter) with which we disagree.
I agree that Paul has much to offer, and that his platform offers considerably more than his GOP opponents’ manifestos; yet, he would be a far stronger and better candidate today without those newsletters from years ago. Believing otherwise is politically naive and ideologically compromising.
For more about Paul’s supporters, see Who is a Ron Paul supporter? – The Washington Post.