OK, well the search for the best Presidential candidate has been as harried as it has been long. In the past couple of election cycles (the eight year's I've been cognizant enough to be lucid about this stuff), the choice has been pretty clear cut and easy. Even during the primaries, candidates like Alan Keyes added beautiful facility to the decision to support.

I won't go into all the criteria I have for a President - it's only 6:30 in the morning and I have a day of typing ahead of me at work - but you all know my political views generally enough to follow my pensing on this.

To be honest, the GOP has a lackluster slate of candidates this cycle. We have wishy-washy conservatives, firebrands of dubious electability and practically no primary survival chance, and moderate liberals. There are a few conservatives who really interest me (Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pense and Tom Coburn), but only one of them is officially a candidate and none of them have enough clout to go anywhere.

Yeah, politics is pragmatic.

Anyway, I spent the weekend at Allison's house up in Tahoe and got regurgitated on (Allison had just returned from a week-long Cato Institute rally in San Diego - think homeschooled anarchists - and was talkative). At the end of the regurgitation I found myself supporting Ron Paul for President. Being the loyal fool I am, I won't be changing that position anytime soon and I want to give my friends out there, especially the ones I don't see all that often, some of the justifications for my decision and maybe be a little evangelistic, so read closely.

Ron Paul is a radical conservative. His platform calls for the abolition of social security, complete tax reforms including abolition of the federal income tax, limiting the use of eminent domain, sale of federal lands including national parks, privatization of schools and expanded border security. I don't like some of what Paul stands for (like a return to the Gold Standard and getting rid of the Fed), but the point is that he would be a really strong conservative.

Congress right now is abysmally moderate. About the only thing Dems and Reps can agree on is to increase spending and milktoast candidates - the kind who stop suckling at their mother's teet so they can run for President - won't have the backbone to stop it.

Government needs to be limited. That's a foundation in the GOP platform and something I firmly believe. Government can't be limited if there isn't gridlock and the best way to create gridlock is to have a guy like Paul in office.

One of final comment and then I will conclude this verbose note: I will have no part with a GOP party that continues to endorse candidates that don't adhere to the platform. Why have a position if everybody ignores it? I am registered Republican because of the beauty with which the 2004 platform described my political views, but if the GOP continues to ignore the platform, I will go elsewhere. And I'd love it if you'd join me.

EDIT (073007.21:18)
Brady brought up a really good point that I should address...Paul's view on foreign policy, especially his dislike of interventionism is scary. We shouldn't cut and run in Iraq, we should have a policy of aggressive peace and we do have a right to defend ourselves, even when that defense takes place in hostile territory - especially when it takes place in hostile territory.

Paul's approach to terror would temper if/when we are next attacked. It would have to. Congress would force him to grow some and to some extent it really doesn't matter who is in the White House (GOP or Dem) when danger is eminent.

As far as preventing another attack (Giuliani's stump argument), I feel really secure. Bush has done an awesome job of keeping the fundamentalist islamofacists out of my life. Maybe that success is now hurting his party; I simply refuse to put the finer points of preserving national security (a largely emotional issue) above the domestic flaws that are threatening to lampoon our nation.

It's like the Titanic bragging about its life boats.

Keep in mind that the election is 18 months away, and that the Iraq situation should (knock wood) be somewhat dissipated by then.

In sum, Paul's Iraq views are a count against him, but I am willing to overlook that for the reasons described above.