Christopher Caldwell

An American conservative who loves the Constitution

Christopher Caldwell on the impact of Ron Paul, the anti-war congressman running for the Republican nomination and finding unexpected support on the web

issue 15 December 2007

A Republican debate in Florida in late November marked this electoral season’s debut of Adolf Hitler, that reliable presence in American presidential campaigns. The Arizona senator John McCain, struggling to draw even with the garrulous ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the Mormon technocrat (and former Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney, decided to burnish his pro-war credentials. The problem was, there was almost nobody to burnish them against. Seven of the eight candidates on stage had vied for months to outdo one another in their lock-stock-and-barrel support for George W. Bush’s Iraq policy.

That left Ron Paul, the 72-year-old, ten-term congressman from Texas, to bear the brunt of McCain’s wrath. Paul objected to the idea of toppling Saddam Hussein’s tyranny from the moment Bill Clinton first proposed it in 1998. He has called the present war illegal, immoral, un-Christian and, worst of all, unaffordable. ‘I’ve heard him now in many debates talk about bringing our troops home and about the war in Iraq and how it’s failed,’ said McCain, glaring across at Paul as applause began to swell.

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