Authors: Seth Stern

Among the many broken promises of the 2008 campaign rests the widening destruction that was a key campaign promise for the eventual winner. Then-Sen. Obama promised in his campaign and eventually issued policy memorandums promising not to interfere with state-sanctioned medical marijuana.

I sincerely hope those of you who voted for him based on those promises of hope, change and transparency â€“â€“ not to mention the end of civil rights violations â€“â€“ have recognized the only trait the man carries that discriminates him from his predecessors is his skin color.

Congratulations, America; we finally have true equality when a black president can be just as horrible as his white predecessor. Truly, equality has arrived. For those of you still zealously supporting Comrade Zero, you havenâ€™t done enough reading.

In the history of the U.S., few presidents have violated the Bill of Rights and Constitution as frequently as this alleged former-Constitutional Law professor. Iâ€™m not a cheerleader for Colorado Stateâ€™s Political Science Department, but I learned from two professors more knowledgeable of the Constitution than heâ€™s demonstrated. Then again, itâ€™s likely he doesnâ€™t care about the Constitution, which seems certain.

Regardless of his hate for checks and balances, Congressional authority and a litany of other areas in which he has unabashedly disappointed his voters, the hypocrisy is what aggravates me. Not his â€“â€“ heâ€™s an Illinois politician educated in the Ivy League, hypocrisy is his first language, but the hypocrisy of his supporters.

I continue to point to the continued failure that is the drug war as proof the American voter has less influence on federal legislation than corporate entities. In the year since I wrote about the contradictions of the federal alcohol and prescription painkiller laws compared to marijuana, the federal government not only reinvigorated their idiotic campaign against cannabis, but theyâ€™ve done so as a direct violation of executive policy. Want to guess why?

The president is running for reelection from slightly-right-of-center. Heâ€™s continued the interventionist foreign policy of the 20th century, he attempted to extend the occupation of Iraq, heâ€™s going to support whatever version of SOPA Congress gives him as the American people slumber on and never mind the assassinations of American citizens.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul creeps along like the Constitutional Septuagenarian Ninja Turtle, not for three years, but for three decades of consistently calling for an end to the drug war, illustrating the folly of interventionist foreign policy and, with an eerily accurate understanding of economics you usually wonâ€™t hear from him.

But this year is different â€“â€“ 2008 proved the â€œnew mediaâ€ of the Internet cannot be controlled by the â€œold mediaâ€ of newspapers, TV and radio but the old media mirrored the new.

In 2012, young voters are realizing there is only one man in either party they can trust to keep his word to end draconian federal acts, and they are doing so almost entirely utilizing new media, as the old media has inexplicably failed to accurately cover the popularity of Paulâ€™s campaign.

Admittedly, there are complicated reasons â€“â€“ most of which revolve around the failure of primaries to identify the candidates most appealing to undecided, unregistered, third party and Independent voters.

In that specific area, Paul beats everyone. Add registered Democrats to the mix and heâ€™s the only Republican candidate to consistently beat the president in non-partisan polls. But that runs counter to what the GOP actually wants.

Primaries are decided by the politically active members of each party, then the general election starts and both candidates race to the center. This establishes a pattern of candidates changing positions like frightened rabbits, while providing as much leadership as the trailing end of a lemming migration.

But not my man Ron Paul â€“â€“ this weekend his and a recently withdrawn candidateâ€™s delegates took the majority of Coloradoâ€™s delegates to the national convention. This isnâ€™t over, and consistency of message may very well upset the apple cart of empty rhetoric.

S. Jacob Stern hopes for actual change in Washington D.C. His column appears Mondays in the Collegian. He can be reached at letters@collegian.com.