Ron Paul Endorses Mark Sanford

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – He is a gadfly, isn’t he?  That’s what he was called when he was in Congress, the gadfly Ron Paul.  He is kind of a counterrevolutionary spirit.  The fact that the official GOP says they’re not going to support Sanford might have been enough for Ron to say: All I got to do is sign a fundraising letter?  All right, give it to me.  I’ll sign it.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

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“Rand is a grassroots champion and has a huge, devoted following that will be with him through thick and thin,” said Benton, who ran Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in 2012.  “There is a very small, but extremely vocal, group of contrarians that throw a tantrum anytime Rand does something they don’t quite understand, but the vast majority of the ever-growing Tea Party and Liberty movement is with him 100 percent.”

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Mike:  I don’t know that I would find that very comforting if I was one of those people that had a concern over this, and I am.  There’s some arrogance here in all this. There is a certain amount of hubris.  [mocking] “I am the son of the king, Ron.  You will learn to love me whether or not I say the same things Ron said or not.”  I told someone this once upon a time — Andrew, you’ll probably recall this.  I told someone, some ones, probably two or three dozen in the last four years of this program, when they would call and want to know why I hated my country and why I wouldn’t toe the company line or the channel line when it came to war and debt and deficit, and why I was such a stickler for the stupid Constitution and that it didn’t really mean what I thought it meant but it meant what the court had interpreted it to mean.  [mocking] “Why do you stick by your boy, your buddy Ron Paul when it comes to all this?”

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I’ve told this story before and I’ll tell it again because I think it has meaning here.  I have had very little occasion, since I have known Ron and known of Ron in November of 2007 and beyond, to disagree with him.  There are very few times that he’s done anything that I go: Wow, that’s a shocker, or Man, I can’t believe Ron Paul said that.  It just doesn’t happen.  The reason it doesn’t happen is because he is consistent.  He is doctrinaire and very conservative in his beliefs, and is not willing to change them to comport with what Fox News or some website thinks that he should mold them to.  In other words, he is principled.  If you’re a principled individual and people are attracted to you and you stand by your principles and don’t equivocate on them, then I would say that the people that were drawn to you to start with are going to continue to be drawn to you, end of story.  They’re not going to bail on you.

If there’s one thing missing in the modern era, Andrew, it is men of virtue and it is men of principle, that cannot be purchased at any price and will not go along and play the game simply for the sake of playing it.  Congressman Paul was one of the very, very few men that falls into that category, and was a very public person.  This is difficult to do.  People think that’s easy.  It’s not easy.  I would say really the only way you can pull it off is if you are raised like that and if your thought process and your — I don’t want to say ideology because I don’t perceive Ron to be ideological — if your way of thinking is consistent like that, you’re in a position to be able to defend it and, just by virtue of your actions, be able to withstand those who are in opposition to you.  It’s like the water on the duck’s back.  So they disagree with me today.  I’m cool with that.  I’m not changing my mind.  You can disagree, that’s fine.  I’m going to keep debating you and trying to change your mind.  That’s what I have to say about that.

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AG:  I’m with you on that.  My eyebrows were raised quite a bit yesterday considering Ron Paul’s endorsement of Mark Sanford.  I want to get your thoughts on that.

Mike:  I have only seen the headline.  I have not delved that deeply into Paul endorsing Sanford.  When did this — was he asked this or did he come out for Sanford?

AG:  He wrote in a fundraising appeal “Mark Sanford has always been a strong ally of the Liberty Movement.  Help him get to Congress.  Donate today!”  This was one of two endorses that came out yesterday, the second one being Paul Brown in the Georgia GOP Senate primary.  The Sanford thing, the RNC has said we’re not helping him whatsoever, and this was even before the trespassing at his ex-wife’s house came out.

Mike:  Which is ridiculous, by the way.  I don’t know who’s more ridiculous, Mark or Jenny Sanford.  When you’re talking about your son and you go to watch a Super Bowl party with your son, it’s at the wife’s beach house.  Outside of the realm of politics, there is a certain amount of shall we say propriety and methodology that you must use once you have gone through the state process of divorcing and divvying up assets and child support.  The courts really don’t much care who you are and what your station in life is for this.  Of course, there is always political patronage, but these things are nuclear.  Don’t go anywhere near them.  It’s just poor judgment.  Maybe he just thought: Jenny would never do that to me if I just stopped by her house.  The son is there watching the Super Bowl.  The whole “I didn’t want him to watch the Super Bowl” alone makes people think: He’s 15, dude.  What, are you afraid he’s going to see a Paula Abdul commercial or a Doritos commercial that’s going to corrupt his brain?  I can look beyond that.

AG:  As you describe it, though, it’s a nuclear situation.  You don’t want to be anywhere close to it.  I’m kind of surprised —

Mike:  It’s poor judgment.

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AG:  I’m surprised as to why Dr. Paul even wanted to enter himself into the fray.

Mike:  He is a gadfly, isn’t he?  That’s what he was called when he was in Congress, the gadfly Ron Paul.  He is kind of a counterrevolutionary spirit.  The fact that the official GOP says they’re not going to support Sanford might have been enough for Ron to say: All I got to do is sign a fundraising letter?  All right, give it to me.  I’ll sign it.

AG:  I think it’s a no-win situation.  It would be one thing if he said: I would prefer Sanford over Stephen Colbert’s sister.  I think it’s another thing when you start to say let’s donate to Sanford’s campaign.  That seems to, at least in my mind, show a little bit more agreement with Sanford than just saying he’d be a better person in Congress than Colbert Busch.  All the latest polls show her up seven, eight, nine points.  I don’t know.

Mike:  Colbert or Colbert’s sister?

AG:  Which is crazy, but a lot of the political pundits have said this is probably best in the long run for the Republican Party because, let’s be honest, it would only be fulfilling the rest of the term by Colbert Busch.  Then there’s zero chance that she’d win reelection and you’d ultimately end Sanford’s political career, which is a good thing for the GOP since, up until yesterday, no one wanted to touch him.  I was just surprised because I don’t think there’s anything positive that can come to Dr. Paul by telling people to donate to Sanford’s campaign.  I didn’t understand the political or cultural benefit out of endorsing Sanford.

Mike:  Unless you’re thinking 2016 and South Carolina and your son needing the support of those elected to high offices in South Carolina.

AG:  Yeah, but he’s losing.  He’s down so many points.  I just didn’t get it.

Mike:  Then maybe it’s that — if we go back prior to the Appalachian Trail episode and Governor Sanford purportedly going missing for a couple days because he was hiking from South Carolina to Maine on the Appalachian Trail or whatever when he was really hobnobbing it with a hottie down in Buenos Aires.  Sanford was a star.  Sanford was on this show.  You remember, it took you weeks and weeks to get him on the program.  Remember, he was one of the few governors that refused stimulus money.  He refused to expand his unemployment compensation base in the state.  He wouldn’t sign the bill.  He wouldn’t take the stimulus, porkulus, succubus money.  He was a sound money guy.  We talked to him and I asked him about that.

By all accounts, Sanford was a rising star and just happened to be a pretty solid republican.  Politically speaking, I’d say that Ron is making the right decision.  If he’s looking for common cause with politicians, from what I know of Mark Sanford, former Governor Sanford, I’d say he’s a good bedfellow.  Is he the most temperamental and the most well-behaved of that strand of people?  Obviously, as recent events illustrate, no.  Then again, are we talking about legislative action or are we talking about winning the soapbox and winning the hearts and minds of those that are staying at home during the day monitoring their Facebook pages and watching Susan Lucci in the background?

End Mike Church Show Transcript