Analysis: Paul In New Hampshire

* DEMEANOR. Rep. Paul seemed disengaged and was the only candidate who didn’t jump in and interject—he didn’t partake, even though the forum was open to it. The others did. Campaigning must be ever so exhausting, even for the spry Dr. Paul. Fatigue may have set in. It’s understandable. But it was also obvious.
* SIMPLIFY. When Giuliani manages to better articulate basic, free market principles vis-à-vis healthcare, for example, you know that Paul’s advisers are faltering. He has not mustered the knack for breaking down complex concept like inflation into simple intellectual building blocks. Sure, none of us knows what it’s like to stand up there in opposition to the statist mainstream and speak about freedom and liberty. But then none of us has decided to take on a run for office, as Paul has. Paul, moreover, has done this before.
* IMMIGRATION. The Paul campaign has come out with an innovative ad on illegal immigration. As I said in “Ron Paul’s Electability”—well before all the contretemps over the ad erupted—Paul is hardcore on illegal immigration. He has the best proposals. Rather than focus on Paul’s excellent, passive, non-aggressive devices to bring about the attrition of illegals, the media, including my own WND, has concentrated on the usual suspects: the loudest, most marginal, licentious, left-libertine crazies currently protesting the Paul ad. The tinfoil folks have discovered Paul is no lefty. Rather, he’s a man of the Old, classical liberal Right. As such, Dr. Paul defends with perfect congruity the sovereign nation-state bounded by borders. I’ll be speaking to this issue in my forthcoming, Friday, WND weekly column.
Suffice it to say that when the topic came up during the NH debate, Paul ought to have touted his own pointers as they appear in the ad. Instead, in a habit he seems to be honing, he responded to a question about immigration with an answer about the national ID card, and…inflation. Bad form. Yes, those of us who’re in the intellectual trenches of the fight for liberty know Dr. Paul makes a good point. But it’s the wrong point to make in a timed debate about specifics.
Again, here he ought to have enumerated the points made in his ad—his commitment to abolish both welfare benefits and birthright citizenship puts a Paul administration in the lead on illegal immigration.
* NARROW THE FOCUS. Paul failed to focus his answers on the questions—especially with respect to healthcare. Cardinal Rule: Don’t reply to a question about healthcare with an answer about inflation. As Paul purported, “You have to deal with the monetary issue to solve the problem of the medical issue.” This is very broadly true, but it doesn’t answer the voter’s need to know what Dr. Paul’s policy prescription is for healthcare. Sadly, the voter believes this too is a government responsibility.
Neither do you reply to the same question with this retort: “The resources are going overseas. We’re fighting a trillion-dollar war, and we shouldn’t be doing it. Those resources should be spent back here at home.” Paul’s reply here implies that government ought to fund healthcare rather than gratuitous warfare. He didn’t mean it, but it sure sounded as if he did.
Contrast that with Giuliani’s
The reality is that, with all of its infirmities and difficulties, we have the best health care system in the world. And it may be because we have a system that still is, if not holy [sic], at least in large part still private. To go in the direction that the Democrats want to go — much more government care, much more government medicine, socialized medicine — is going to mean a deteriorated state of medicine in this country. … I said jokingly in one debate, if we go in the direction of socialized medicine, where will Canadians come for health care?
Giuliani links the private sector with efficient healthcare delivery; government to shortages and inefficiencies.
* BE PRECISE. Bandying about expressions and phrases such as “federal mandates,” or “forced benefits” confuses the voter. Better to use simple words to spell out how the Federal Frankenstein has compelled the states by law to provide free medical care, education, and assorted welfare largesse to illegals. Similarly, don’t throw about the word inflation. Rather, speak of—in context only, not as an antidote to every problem—more paper money in the system causing every unit to depreciate. … A simplified inflation explanation is in “Dubya the Devaluer.”