Barack has already been endorsed by some old-school Republicans opposed to the Iraq War and creeping executive power, like Lincoln Chafee, Susan Eisenhower, and Doug Kmiec.
Ron Paul has managed to get nearly a million votes in the Republican primary so far, and will likely have a million at the end of primary season [there are still quite a few decent-sized states left, and I expect him to do especially well in the Idaho and Oregon primaries].
He's been getting support from various disaffected anti-government groups, including primarily:
1) Drug users
2) Libertarians (this includes the Internet spammers and the Constitution-lovers)
3) anti-war Republicans
4) Conspiracy theorists
5) Paleoconservatives
6) White Supremacists
Obama's shown great strength in third category, and lesser but still significant strength in the 2nd category. Those in the 1st, who knows (but they will not vote McCain)
Conspiracy theorists will probably vote McKinney or Nader (or Gravel, if he runs as the Gravelanche party candidate after failing to get the Libertarian nomination)
Paleoconservatives (Pat Buchanan types) are probably likely to stick with McCain.
What about the white supremacists? They absolutely love Ron Paul. Don Black, operator of the pre-eminent white supremacist site Stormfront sent the Paul campaign a big check [which they kept]
One would think that "Of course they'll do anything to stop a black president."
And they probably will.
However, these days white supremacists have been less concerned about the "Negro menace" (or whatever they call it).
Their biggest focus is on:
1) Latino immigrants [they despise McCain for pushing "amnesty" since the 1980's]
and
2) The Jews [my people! as Tom Lehrer sang:
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics.
And the Catholics hate the Protestants.
And the Hindus hate the Muslims.
And everybody hates the Jews.
I'm not exaggerating at all.
David Duke, quite possibly America's best-known living white supremacist, proves my point.
While they've of course called him a black supremacist and whitey-hater and such referencing Wright, they've quite possibly spent more time attacking Obama for being too pro-Jew.
I'm not kidding.
One would think that a white supremacist would spent most of his response to the "bitter" remarks:
“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Mr. Obama said. (Quoted by the New York Times, April 12, 2008)
bashing him as an uppity Negro and bashing him for the problems they generally blame blacks for.
He does attack affirmative action in the first line.
The second line is devoted mostly to what he sees as the ways blacks have ruined public schools, although he also gets in a bash at gays and "educational mediocrity" (which may be blacks, but may not be).
His third line bashes "able-bodied welfare parasites" (which I assume is code for blacks), but is at least halfway devoted to illegal immigrant-bashing.
The fourth line is devoted to further illegal-immigrant bashing.
The rest of the piece, at least ten lines long, is devoted entirely to bashing Jews with the exception of one line about "dangerous streets" requiring people to cling to their guns. And he really covers all the anti-Semitic falsehood. The only things I'm missing are "Jews did 9/11," "Jews drink Christian baby blood," and "The Holocaust never happened"
Everything else, he covers:
He's got:
- Jews Have Ruined our Economy-"unelected economic czars such as Greenspan and Bernanke, Wolfowitz and a whole coterie of Jewish “people who aren’t like them” have ripped them off"
- Jews made us go to war with Iraq
- Jewish Financiers are in Control of Our Government
- Jews are destroying Christianity
Even the fundraiser itself isn't spared the Jew-bashing. While most people have been emphasizing the "San Francisco elitist" (i.e. gay) aspect, David Duke twice makes sure to note that the real issue was that the people at the fundraiser were "heavily Jewish"
This is also his main problem with Barack Obama's association with English professor and former radical William Ayers; that the Weather Underground was "a Jewish organization."
Ayers was/is a Protestant; his wife and fellow former Underground member Bernardine Dohrn was/is a white Catholic.
While it's true that the New Left had a heavy Jewish contingent-at least partly because in the 60's colleges had eliminated their Jewish quotas (and even then, the vast majority of Jews attended college due to cultural/economic factors, while far fewer non-Jews attended in those days), but probably overrepresented even so.
And it's also true that 3 of the Chicago 7 came from Jewish backgrounds (Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Lee Weiner)
and that the Weathermen did have a decent number of prominent Jewish members: Ted Gold, Kathy Boudin, Mark Rudd, Jane Alpert, David Gilbert, Naomi Jaffe
But again, neither Ayers nor Dohrn was Jewish; neither was Diana Oughton, Jeff Jones, Brian Flanagan, Terry Robbins, Cathy Wilkerson, Linda Evans, Marilyn Buck, Tim Blunk, , Jim Mellen, Gerry Long, Steve Tappis ...
The point being, I guess, that David Duke will find the craziest "Jewish conspiracy" connections.
So, anyway, will Paul's favoring have an effect?
I doubt it. But stranger things have happened.
