The Myth of the Rogue Paulite
By Andrew Schwartz | Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 | Catch-AllCross posted at American Thinker
Any strong showing for Ron Paul in the Republican presidential primary polls must have an asterisk. Ron Paul supporters will not transfer their loyalty to any other GOP candidate should their man not get the nomination. They will either stay home, vote for Obama, or write in Ron Paul on the ballot. They are an heteroclite group, irregularly declined from political party nominatives, unpredictable in their apposition, and substantively anomalous. His numbers versus other Republican candidates cannot be indicative of Republican support, because his supporters are not traditional Republican voters. Nor does he stand any chance of winning against Barack Obama because many traditional Republicans won’t vote for him. Disregard Ron Paul and his Paulistines.
This is the myth.
Pundits, pollsters, and party nomarchs insist this is the case, and many other entrenched Republican Party general members urge their fellows against this “lunatic’ or “kook” (or “racist” or “bigot”) as zealously as Paul’s supporters proselytize for him. But is there any widespread basis for this, or is it a general induction derived from statistical outliers? A recent CBS News poll seems to refute Ron Paul’s inevitable defeat versus Barack Obama. But it also demonstrates something more about the vast majority of his supporters, should he receive the nomination: they are not as cultish as they have been portrayed.
Ron Paul statistically tied Barack Obama nationally in a head-to-head hypothetical matchup versus Barack Obama. He and Mitt Romney were the only candidates to do so — all others were outside the negative margin of error.
But where does his support come from?
Whereas Mitt Romney received 90% support from Republican voters in his own matchup against Obama, Ron Paul received only 81% — ahead of only Jon Huntsman, and tied with Newt Gingrich. Paul and Romney both gained 10% of Democrat voter support, but Ron Paul led the field among independent voters, with 47% support.
Source: CBS New Poll, Jan 9, 2011
So perhaps this is where his kooky supporters are hiding — in the “Independent” category.
But the average support given to a Republican candidate by Independents in this poll was 41.67% with a standard deviation of 3.56%. This gives Ron Paul a positive z-score of 1.5 among Independents, hardly indicative of any major kookage. (Mitt Romney received 45% support from independents — z-score of 0.76 — so perhaps one can generously say that Paul has roughly double the supporters who stray from the norm, i.e., “kooks”, than does Romney.)
But I understand that not all independents are created equal, and that some are more normal than others. Presumably one could argue that more “normal” independents would vote for Romney and more “crazy” independents would vote for Ron Paul. This might be true, but not to the extent that anti-Paulites believe.
Among independent voters, Paul has the most participation. Only 2% of independents say they would not vote if he were the nominee, while 4% say they wouldn’t if Romney were the nominee. Indeed, the average percentage of independent voters who said they would not vote is 4% between all Republican/Obama matchups. So 2% of those total independents are die-hard Paul-or-nothing kooks. But even if we take them away, Paul still receives the same amount of independent support as Romney (45%).
But what about a write-in for Ron Paul on election day? True, among independents, Paul was the only candidate whose respondents did not answer “other” in a Republican v. Obama matchup (besides Jon Huntsman, which can be attributed more to a lack of name recognition than zealous support). But in Romney, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum’s matchups, only 1% said they would vote for someone besides the Republican candidate or Obama. Even if we are extremely generous toward the myth and ascribe all of these “others” to Ron Paul — and not, say, Ralph Nader or Buddy Roemer – the rogues are fewer and farther between than we have been led to believe by opponents of Ron Paul.
On the other hand, double the Republicans said they would not vote at all if Paul were the nominee than for any other matchup. While 5% of Republicans said they would stay home with Paul at the head of the Republican ticket, the average was only 2.5%. Similarly, 9% of Republicans said they would vote for Obama versus Ron Paul, while only 5% would cast for Obama versus Mitt Romney.
So, while there can be as many as 3% of independent Ron Paul Supporters who insist on their candidate or no one, there are more than quadruple that number of Republicans (14%) who insist on refusing to support Ron Paul. If Dr. Paul received equal the support of Mitt Romney among Republicans, he would actually poll a half-percentage point higher than Romney in a matchup vs. Obama.
Source: CBS News Poll, Jan 9, 2011
Summary:
Romney beats Paul in total Republican support: Romney supporters cannot find Ron Paul kooks in this demographic without admitting they actually have more.
Romney and Paul are tied among Democrats: There can be no more Ron Paul kooks here than Mitt Romney kooks.
Paul beats Romney among independents: But only by 2%. Even if these are the kooks, they only comprise 0.74% of the total number of voters, truly within the realm of being a statistical outlier rather than anything normative.
Even if we double the maximum number of Ron Paul kooks among independents by throwing in some Republican and Democrat Paulites for good measure, the number of Republicans alone who would refuse to give Dr. Paul their support would still be 133% greater.
So which bloc is truly being more stubborn? And should the footnote for the asterisk read, “Indicative of rogue libertarians — actual results should be lower,” or “Indicative of Republican obstinacy—actual results should be higher”?
[Note: I am aware that many of my recent posts are positive toward Ron Paul. While I do support Dr. Paul, I won't necessarily vote for him. I also support Mr. Romney. I also support other GOP candidates. I simply see much (not all) of the criticism toward Dr. Paul, and his not being taken seriously, as being misguided.]
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About the author
Andrew Schwartz is a historian from Old Dominion University, where, despite his conservative arguments in liberal academia, he graduated Summa Cum Laude. His focus as a historian is on Colonial and Revolutionary American political, legal and intellectual history. His focus on politics is rational conservatism. He can also be found at AmericanThinker.com.
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10 Responses to "The Myth of the Rogue Paulite"
Way to entertain and set the record straight. Nice!
Andrew, how does Ron Paul compare to the Ross Perot of twenty rears ago other than they have the same initials? Those on the left are starting to compare Paul’s possible bid to Perot’s as an independent a ticket splitter for Romney, and a sure win for Obama.
@Tim J. I hope he does not run third-party. That, of course, would change everything. Just look, for example, at the New Hampshireites who voted overwhelmingly for Ron Paul on conviction while those who voted for Romney overwhelmingly voted because of his chances at beating Obama (http://bearingdrift.com/2012/01/10/mitt-romney-wins-the-expediency-vote/). The principle vs. politics game, especially among independents, would definitely have an impact in a three-way race.
But the only way I see Paul entertaining a third party run if he doesn’t win the nomination is if the GOP refuses to adopt any of his proposals, to their platform, or refuses even to recognize him, at the national convention.
He may be cognizant that if he does go third-party this time around, he will be damaging future leadership prospects for his legacy as embodied by his posterity.
If Romney wins the nomination, however, I hope that his supporters can find something about him to vote FOR and get excited about it. His experience is a great place to start.
Any prospect of a 3rd party end run would overturn the movement to restore constitutional principles that RP supporters hold near and dear to their hearts. Some will support a 3rd run but vast majority that I speak with know that for the long haul the goal is to win the gop nomination period and with no exceptions to remove Obama.. In the process many are coming of age this election season and are exposing themselves as the next generation of patriots with a healthy addiction to the constitution our founders left us to defend.
If you have not met personally with Paul supporters, step out of your comfort zone and meet these young guns. Many of them are still in school.. high school for some. Form your own opinions about Paul supporters and question the motives of the media influence and the old geezers in the party who pull the strings.
The loudest voices supporting Ron Paul (1) are the most obnoxious, (2) have no idea of what Ron Paul actually stands for, and (3) have no idea why they believe what they believe.
It’s typical of a guy who’s found one good idea in his life and then runs around screaming that it’s the new God. Hold on there, hombre — sit back, take a chill pill, and read on what other people had to say about that idea.
To make matters worse, the Randroids get into the mix. Talk about a mess.
Andrew’s point is well taken though. Romney supporters in their obstinacy are far more fanatic about their candidate than Paul supporters, who seem resigned to the fact that they will make a good showing, but know the nominee is already baked in (no pun intended).
Paul stands on principle without compromising or changing them.. This is a primary difference between Romney and Paul and the rest whatever their names are (sic) as far as virginia is concerned at this point.
Yea, Shaun, when those young empty headed Paulites start talking about velocity theory, money supply, the Federal Reserve, why commodity prices are higher, why spending money you don’t have is a bad thing, why just printing money unsupported by value is bad, why continual war is bad, why government interfereing with the natural law/individual’s inherent rights needs to be prevented……yea….you’re right. They have no idea what Ron Paul is talking about.
If they continually quote Ron Paul, they don’t know what he stands for?
I differ on foreign policy a bit with them(most Ron Paulers)and while agreeing why the current economic policies are bad, I disagree that returning to the gold standard is the right course. I contend that has it’s own issues. However, they certainly seem to me to know what they think and what Ron Paul thinks about these issues. They certainly seem more honest in their rhetoric than you do.
A really nice piece of writing, Andrew, that is well-constructed and logical. Unfortunately, it reminds me of the arguments that Global Climate Change is solely caused by human activity. Yes, there are statistical relationships between climate change and greenhouse gases, but we don’t know if the relationships are correlative or causative. Similarly, we know that there is a correlation between Independents who reject both major party candidates. (I read last week that the percentage of registered voters who self-identify as Independents has broken through 40%.) What we don’t know is whether these Independents are attracted to Ron Paul or repelled by the bipartisan circus that we call Congress. I suspect that the latter is the case rather than the former and that Ron Paul’s support is correlative rather than causative.
BTW, I don’t share your optimism that Ron Paul won’t go Third Party for the sake of his legacy or the future viability of Rand’s political fortunes. The Paulistinians, like the Tea Party, believe fervently that they are the future of the Republican Party. A Third Party run would only serve to annoy “the establishment” that they intend to displace in the New World Order.
What old geezers don’t talk about is the enthusiasm of young voters for their Republican nominee.. Obama harnessed this in 08 and Paul seems to have it for 2012. While the geezers talk anti Obama, the young talk about ideas, liberty, prosperity, peace and harmony. Young folks rebelled against Bush and voted for Obama mostly blind. Now more of them see and are using all their senses.. As time progresses I expect more of them to use judgement that comes with maturity. Old RPV geezers are missing the message these younger guns are moved by and that is not anti obama but economically conservative. The discussion of HOW they will be taxed resonates BIG and the anti Paul republicans dont seem to have that message crafted for them that they want to digest..
The new Western Whitehouse?
http://goo.gl/6e6Ei
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