May 26, 2012 – 11:41 AM by: CRAIG WESTOVER
After a lengthy analysis of the Ron Paul influence evident at the Minnesota GOP Convention May 18-19 in St. Cloud (“Libertarian surge remakes state GOP,” May 20), the burning question for the Star Tribune Editorial Board was whether “a caucus-based political system that magnifies populist tides [and enabled Paul supporters to dominate the state convention] serves this state well.”
Couple that with a harsher Washington Post piece published in full online (“The party of Ron Paul?” May 24) — which labeled recently adopted planks in the Iowa Republican Party platform “wacky” and “nutty” and gleefully anticipated “a few highly visible fights” erupting over “Paulite positions in the national platform” — and it’s evident the Strib is a more than a little confused about what the Ron Paul revolution is all about.
Let me do what I can to clarify.
First, let’s understand what a “movement” or a “revolution” is. All movements — the Pat Robertson Republican coup in the 1980s, gay rights, women’s suffrage, civil rights and, yes, the Ron Paul movement — follow a common pattern.
Movements all begin at the margins with people who have little or nothing to lose. Unsuccessful movements never expand beyond the sloganeering fringe. Successful movements — those with an intellectual and moral basis — mature to attract a mainstream following.
Ron Paul revolution is well beyond the fringe [continued]
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