The most commonly-cited concern is his "extreme" stance on dramatically cutting government spending on programs many think are necessary.
In a legitimate republic, this would be a good reason to reject Paul. However, the current U.S. government, especially Congress, is anything but legit.
At its founding, the U.S. government, a constitutional republic, was explicitly set up to uphold the rules and ideals of the U.S. Constitution.
It was also set up to "promote the general Welfare." That is, elected officials were mandated to look after the interests of the people.
Washington today, however, serves neither the Constitution nor the people. Instead, it has increasingly become a puppet regime run by lobbying money.
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Washington is dominated by career politicians whose main concern is getting re-elected. In order to do so, most have become puppets of whoever will pay for their re-election campaign.
In modern politics, money is crucial to winning elections. It takes money to buy ads in newspapers, radio stations, TV programs and Web sites. It also takes money to afford a large campaign staff.
While the Internet has made a grassroots fundraising strategy more viable, Washington politics is still dominated by organizations, influential individuals and bundlers who help political candidates raise money.
For example, Obama's 2012 re-election campaign has already received at least $55 million from his top 357 bundlers, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Once candidates funded by big money are elected to office, they are then effectively controlled by some of the same entities that supported their campaigns.
There is another reason members of Congress worship at the altar of the Washington lobbyist/campaign contribution complex; when their political career ends, they often take lucrative jobs with lobbying firms or companies they served while in office.
A notorious example of this behavior was seen in former Congressman Bob Livingston. In 1998, Livingstone resigned as the House Speaker-elect due to the exposure of his marital infidelities.
Soon afterwards, he established a lobbying group in Washington. Disturbingly, Livingston's group represented the autocratic governments of Morocco, Libya and Egypt.
One of the "accomplishments" of Livingston was helping Mubarak "stall a Senate bill that called on Egypt to curtail human rights abuses," according to the New York Times.
(As an aside, does anyone else find it wrong that foreign countries - including brutal regimes like Egypt and "competing" countries like China - have such a big influence on members of the U.S. Congress?)
Livingston and his associates, in turn, gave over $500,000 in campaign contributions to various political candidates from 2000 to 2004, according to Public Citizen.
"Like many lobbyists along Washington's famed K Street corridor, Livingston opens his wallet for a substantial number of candidates and political action committees (PACs) engaged in key political races. And in doing so, he engages in what may be the most influential form of lobbying," wrote Public Citizen.
(For the 2012 campaign, Fiscal Times reported that Mitt Romney is the "main beneficiary" of lobbyist donations, raking in nearly $1 million so far from lobbyist fundraisers.)
As the result of this lobbyist/campaign contribution complex in Washington, the U.S. Congress' priority is no longer upholding the rules of the Constitutions or promoting the welfare of the people.
Instead, it has become a battleground for big money to exert its influence. In the context of this corruption, debates over political candidates' party affiliations and policy beliefs have almost become political theater used to distract voters from more important issues.
That is, it matters not what a corrupt politician's position is on issues like immigration, the environment or gun control; ultimately, the candidate, whoever he is, that ends up winning the election will just do what the lobbyists tell him to do.
Unfortunately, many Americans get sucked into meaningless political theater and completely ignore the influence of money on politicians.
In the 2012 presidential race, Paul is the only leading candidate not corrupted by money. (In fact, he is one of the few politicians in all of Washington to not be corrupted by money.)
Paul runs by far the most grassroots campaign. His top contributions come from members of the U.S. military because they support his non-interventionist stance.
In his personal life, he refused to take Medicare and Medicaid money as a doctor, refused to participate in the House pension program and encouraged his children to refuse government-funded student loans.
Contrastingly, Romney's top contributors are individuals associated with Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley. Gingrich, the poster child puppet of Washington insiderism, is funded in part by an industry "whose government subsidies he has steadfastly defended even while running as a fiscal conservative."
Gingrich's consulting firm also conveniently raked in $1.6 million while working for Freddie Mac, the failed quasi-government entity, from 1999 to 2008.
Incumbent Obama, who was swimming in Wall Street money in 2008, did very little to clean up Washington's corruption. In fact, he specifically broke his campaign promise to "create tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials."
Unlike these politicians, Paul, if elected president, would actually serve the U.S. Constitution and the American people instead of pandering to big money campaign donors.
He would do so within a Libertarian framework, which may be frightening for some voters. But is America really better off with a Republican or Democratic President who is owned by big money rather than a Libertarian-leaning President who actually serves the Constitution and the American people?
Consider also that the mainstream Democratic and Republican Party both support "extreme" policies like the Patriot Act, the "War on Drugs" and fighting unnecessary wars all over the world.
Cynics may think Paul can do little to change America because Congress is corrupt. However, he can make a big difference in two ways.
First, he can veto bills he deems unconstitutional and harmful to the American people, thereby making it harder for Congress to pass them.
Second, he will have a powerful platform to publicly call out Congress for its corruption.
In a famous rant in August 2011, MNSBC's Dylan Ratigan provided the following formula for the U.S. President, whoever he may be, to clean up corruption in Congress:
I would like him to go to the people of the United States of America and say, 'People of the United States of America, your Congress is bought, your Congress is incapable of making legislation on healthcare, banking, trade, or taxes because if they do it, they will lose their political funding and they won't do it. But I'm the President of the United States, and I won't have a country that is run by a bought Congress. So I'm not going to work with a bought Congress.
At the end of the day, a vote for Paul is a vote against corruption and an indictment of the corrupt Washington establishment. This aspect of Paul's presidential run is equally important, if not more so, than his Libertarian political beliefs.
A vote for any other leading candidate, contrastingly, will simply be a vote for the continuation of corruption in Washington.
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