The Iowa caucuses are just five days away and recent polls of likely Iowa caucus voters indicate that Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX.) has a strong chance at winning the Hawkeye state.
After several of his GOP rivals took shots at the Texas congressman this week for his unique domestic and foreign policy, Union Leader, the popular conservative New Hampshire newspaper, published a scathing editorial about Mr. Paul Thursday.
Joseph W. McQuaid, Union Leader’s publisher, called Mr. Paul a “dangerous man” who is favored by the “white supremacists and anti-Semites.”
“Ron Paul is a dangerous man. While his domestic libertarian views are quite attractive to some voters fed up with politics as usual, it is Paul’s position on issues of our national security that are truly dangerous,” Mr. McQuaid writes in the editorial.
“Paul believes that al-Qaida terrorists caught in the United States ought to be treated as common criminals, not enemy combatants. He wants them read Miranda rights to which they are not entitled and he wants them tried and sentenced in civil courts rather than by military tribunals. This is nothing short of nuts,” the Union Leader publisher added.
In recent weeks Mr. Paul emerged as a front runner in Iowa, and started drawing heightened criticism from the media and other Republican presidental candidates, especially for a series of racially charged newsletters that ran under his name in the 1980s and 90s.
The Texas congressman has denied writing the newsletters and claimed to have no knowledge of the racist comments in them until 10 years after they were published.
In November Union Leader endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, praising him for his record on Capitol Hill in the 1990s and his “forward thinking strategies.”
At the same time, Mr. McQuaid had been most critical of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is favored to win the New Hampshire primary election on January 10th.
However, now that Mr. Paul has serious chance at contending for the Republican nomination, the paper that backed his rival Mr. Gingrich is attacking him. The New Hampshire publications criticism of Mr. Romney was nowhere near as harsh as their assesment of Mr. Paul.
Mr. McQuaid seems to share the view of many political pundits who are impressed by Mr. Paul’s strong following and liberterian leaning views, but give him no real chance of seriously competing against President Barack Obama if he were to win the Republican nomination in 2012.
“Never mind Paul being the favored candidate of the lunatic fringe (see white supremacists, anti-Semites, truthers, etc.). Never mind his refusal to disavow a third-party run (which would only help President Obama’s reelection),” Mr. McQuaid posited in the editorial.
“His defenders say they admire Ron Paul’s ‘consistency.’ It is true, Paul has been consistently spouting this nonsense. It is about time New Hampshire voters showed him the door,” Mr. McQuaid added.
