Ron Paul really has a chance. To be president, I mean. Really.

Because we are now in uncharted waters and things could go terribly wrong. All that new money we are printing will eventually hit the shore and inflation will result. And the tens of thousands of workers, soon to be hired by the government to rebuild the infrastructure and paid with even more new paper money, will spend that money on food and other essentials which will drive up prices. The productive people will see their income and their profits diluted. And by then, it is entirely possible, that the country will be ready to listen.

And they will not want to hear a debate about whether the next bailout should be $600 billion or $700 billion. They will be ready to hear again the arguments in favor of or against a free marketplace. How it should work? Why foreign wars should be avoided and how they can bankrupt us?

There is a growing since of unease, a feeling that we have passed some Rubicon. That we have launched into unchartered territory, led by politicians and economists and journalists who really don’t know what they are doing, and even openly warn us of this fact.

President Obama seems to be sincere and a nice fellow and we are still glowing over the idea of having elected an African American as president. The country that was last to end slavery and grant full civil rights has now leapfrogged societies in Europe and Latin American and Asia, with their class systems and layers of social strata.

But it is becoming clear that the “changes” we wanted are not going to be ushered in by Barrack Obama. If anything, he is feeling the need to reassure the establishment and the institutions of his political base, the unions and other constituencies and the liberal clique on Capitol Hill, that it is not risky to put an African American at the helm. What we are getting is old liberalism, a 1960’s, Lyndon Johnson liberalism. Re-cycled programs that we have already tried and have seen fail. We are seeing the treasury used to pay off political debts to unions and other constituencies. There is increased spending, centralization of power in Washington, D.C. New regulations. The Swedenization of America. And it is coming at a breathtaking pace.

The economic crisis is like the Reichstag fire, which allowed the Nazi’s to change everything in the name of a national emergency. But instead of using the economic crisis to be better managers, we are told we must spend more money, the very thing that got is in this mess in the first place.

The normal checks and balances are not in place. The media watchdog is fighting for its life, newspapers and magazines folding as people turn to the internet. Television news has become entertainment. And sometimes the audience itself dictates the stories and the journalists obediently respond or else. It is scary.

And while the conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama is the second coming of FDR and the economy will likely bounce back in time for his re-election, (that it would bounce back even if George W. Bush were in office,) the new open-the-floodgates spending round may not solve the problem, even temporarily. It may aggravate the crisis. There is no guarantee that this time the economy will automatically rebound at its appointed, politically demanded time.

Over the years, only one national politician has been warning about this coming crisis, clearly and consistently, while others smirked and laughed at him, secure in their knowledge that “the experts” on Wall Street knew what they were doing. And that politician was Ron Paul.

So if the Republican Party gets back to its basics and abandons its failed effort to outspend and out-war the Democrats then there is only one choice. Republicans will either choose among their old, tired politicians, another “Democrat lite,” and call him or her a “conservative,” or they will make a fundamental turn to a free marketer, to a constitutionalist, to someone who sees an America less arrogant in world affairs. And if they make that turn, they will have only one choice.

Can Ron Paul really be elected president? Yes. It can happen.

Note: This is part of an ongoing series. If you need to catch up, here are the previous posts in this chain:

1.) Why he should run for president?

https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/ron-paul-for-president-in-2012/

2.) But isn’t he too old?

https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/is-ron-paul-too-old-to-run-for-president/

3.) How Ron Paul Wins: Step One, the Iowa Straw Poll.

https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/how-ron-paul-wins-in-2012-step-one/

4.) Ron Paul and Karl Rove don’t mix. Who he needs to hire and why?

https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/ron-paul-and-karl-rove-dont-mix/