A criticism of Paul and his rose-colored GOP history glasses - from the 30’s through the 80s (and even now to some extent) a lot of the GOP was slightly or more socialist. Once again, me and Dr. Paul and history aren’t on the same page (I’m not too surprised about me, but he’s on TV).

Almost for fun, but probably serious: I’d like to see him cycle through every Cabinet post for a few months to ‘re-invent Govt’. Well, maybe not treasury…

Killing the enemy makes us safe.

I started to write a post about the direction of the GOP after the debate, but after a couple of glasses of wine I wasn’t sure it would be as lucid as I might want. Paul’s non-intervention foreign policy doesn’t gel with the GOP of today, but it is exactly what I always heard growing up in my strongly GOP household. The party has shifted and I don’t like the new direction; it’s too close to the Democrats of a few decades ago. Paul wants to bring the party back to its roots – and the faithful call him a nut. Unconscionable.

I don’t know if Paul’s foreign policy will make us safer, but I’m quite sure that Cheney’s foreign policy isn’t a good long term solution for this enemy. Unlike the USSR, Islamic radicals are not going to uniformly surrender. Our intense overseas efforts will only cause more Muslims to radicalize in their splintered groups. That makes us less safe in the future.

I don’t have any insight into Paul’s intentions should he not win the GOP nomination. I don’t agree that he would hand Clinton the nomination. For starters one common complaint I’ve heard about Paul is that many of his supporters are actually Democrats, which means that he would pull those Dem voters to his third party candidacy. Although I place domestic issues and fiscal conservatism at the top of my concerns, the next election will be won based on the Iraq war police operation. Conventional wisdom says that Clinton will win because she is more anti-war than the Republicans. Side note, she is only as anti-war as the polls tell her to be; she has no real principle in the matter. Paul on the other hand genuinely plans on ending the war in a hurry. That position will fracture the Dem vote more than it will the GOP vote since he will undermine her calculated position. It is the same reason I think he could beat her as the GOP standard bearer.

I thought Fox did a great job with the debate - good tough serious questions.

I’ve been wondering if Paul would run as an independent or Libertarian if he doesn’t get the nomination (which IMO would guarantee Sen. Clinton’s presidency). Thoughts?

‘Europe’ is notionally our friend, so if the US decides that using our assets to defend our friend is in our best interest, I’m for it.

On a twisted side note - we get to find out if our stuff works using them as targets rather than us. C’est fromage.