I venture to guess this philosophical and rhetorical question will never reach the heights of the catamount in Shakespearian literature. But it may rank a close second soon enough. And it’s been my obligatory response, asking this question of friends, family and associates who have responded somewhat sideways to my “Vote Ron Paul Once For All” efforts. I hear such missives as “He’ll never win the Republican Primary” or “He’s not electable” or “He’s too old” (which is my personal favorite of those who decry the valor of civil liberties, the ADA, or revile the fabric of discrimination). I guess on that note, perhaps Noah should have built himself a two seater speed raft instead of an Ark. And good old Luke Skywalker should have easily outdueled Zen Master Yoda. I believe it was President Lincoln who once said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” So there it is. And in true form to the anathema that the GOP has become to its own legacy, it’s no wonder today carousel seems to resemble the worst of Abraham Lincoln’s fears and trepidations.

In a recent article from The Week, titled “The GOP’s Desperate Hunt for Anyone but Mitt Romney”. The author Robert Shrum wrote, “Romney’s slouching his way towards the nomination – and a disgruntled party will finally surrender to him unless a new Perry emerges who transcends bromides and buffoonery on the stump and befuddlement in the debates.”

It quickly reminded me of an old Italian saying, “It’s better to have a smart enemy than a stupid friend.” Dr. Ron Paul, is the smartest enemy the GOP knows, and he calls himself by his elected party line. Ron Paul is a Republican. He’s been elected as a Congressman from Texas as a Republican since 1976. For this, the GOP hates him. They hate the fact that he was right when he turned away from irrational party line politics during the Bush Administration, all the while they gave George W. Bush carte blanche. In fact, if John Kerry weren’t so much the same, much the way Mitt Romney reflects a subtle image of Barack Obama, the cowboy from Austin would have been tossed with the rest of the party in 2004. Nevertheless, the GOP hates Ron Paul. Hell, they hated Ronald Reagan before he took the primary at the ripe old age of seventy. Maybe there’s something to this old and wise combination.

Shrum’s characterizes the party list of hucksters, including Romney, as “slouching”, filled with “bromides and buffoonery on the stump and befuddlement in the debates”. In the article Shrum runs down every candidate in and every one that hit the wood chipper early, even the too late to call Gov. Chris Christie. Shrum managed to separate one candidate from the rest of the inveterate sot – Ron Paul by describing him as a “cult”. Shrum wrote, “Ron Paul is a cult, entirely out of step with Republicans on foreign policy. (John McCain might have to endorse Obama.)”

Shrum states that “unless a new Perry emerges who transcends the bromides and buffoonery…” But he, Ron Paul, is here now. And it seems that everyone is taking a page out of his 2008 playbook and trying to steal away at his sensibility on domestic and foreign affairs, copying just enough of his party line politics and plan and diluting his message just to gain a slice of greater populist support.

And we go back to the age old adage of “better to have a smart enemy than a stupid friend”. The GOP has lost its guts and sensibility. The center has gotten so massive that it attracts all sorts of oddball cult-like language and epithets like “John McCain might have to endorse Obama.” And this is where you see how Shrum can come to characterize the GOP field of contestants and their abhorrent behavior. They, like the Democrats have come to love the game of zookeeper for the United States of Animal Farm and love to play towards that center of flip-floppiness has also infected President Obama and has avoided his most important party line mantra that brought him to the White House – “…Ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan immediately”. So it seems that bi-partisan politics are bi-polar politics and Americans have, as Ron Paul has suggested are “tired of it all.”

Yet in spite of Americans’ collective will and dissatisfaction, the circus at Animal Farm continues as the GOP, like their counterparts, are not fond of relinquishing the kind of control the Government which has thoroughly enjoyed itself and its existence at the expense of American taxpayers for decades. And there it is. It is this dividing line that Ron Paul is not willing to cross. He is not willing to cross over to this dark side of politics that has kept America in a dead heat tug of war for decades. Instead, to the GOP’s collective consternation, Ron Paul wants to dispense of it, all of it now. And with it, he intends to trash a forty year legacy of adverse selection processes and most importantly, the unconstitutional taking of American civil liberties and capital.

His platform and plans to Restore America are contrary to the neo-con centrist party line politics that tie all of the other GOP candidates to George W. Bush, a President who was obviously far more a Democrat than a Republican. Even a blind observer could hear the giant sucking sound of spending and the draining currency under Bush clearly met the standard of a spender who inflated the size of government through Homeland Security, the TSA, the Patriot Act, Sarbanes-Oxley and meddling in foreign affairs.

Out of step? It seems that the fabulous nine, including Mr. 9-9-9 himself, are and have been out of step themselves. But they’re dancing or at least trying to dance to the beat of Ron Paul’s drum. Each have been busy peeling away at what Ron Paul has gained popularity on – the downsizing government, ending wars, lowering taxes, and reducing regulation. With respect to the debates, both the media and the candidates seem to want to ignore him into non-existence largely because nobody has any basis for cross-examination of any sort during the debates. For “how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man?” The GOP can’t indict Ron Paul. Even Bill Maher, the grand daddy hater of all GOP haters walked away smiling and bemused by the number of issues both he and Ron Paul seemed to agree upon. The bottom line is the GOP hates him. Democrats hate him even more. It’s probably a good nexus of reasoning behind the media’s overt ignorance of Ron Paul’s existence in citing straw poll results where they count first, second, and fourth, and the rest of the field, excluding Ron Paul, comfortably sitting in third and waiting for the final turn into the stretch run for the roses. The GOP can’t argue with him because his platform is absolute, with no retreat or centrist compromise that has caused this colossal quagmire of American disintegration in the first place. All of them, these GOP huckster candidates compromised with Bush. Yet Ron Paul didn’t. He was an outspoken critic of the war effort that drained $1 Trillion out of the American economy with no return. And the continued mix of laissez-faire monetary policies mixed with Keynesian vomit that brought down the housing market and savings in America. More classic bridges to nowhere.

That is what sets him apart. That, and he’s a magnet for service men and women in the category of fund raising. He’s out gaining all of the GOP candidates collectively and has been donated twice the amount by military service men and women that what has been received by the present Commander-In-Chief. Wow, wow, and wow. His popularity with Americans of all age, creed, color, gender, religion and profession has made him a widely followed, respected and recognized Presidential candidate. Yet Shrum characterized Ron Paul as a “cult”. That’s a new one. Well, for starters, a “cult” is not a person, neither can it be a person. A cult generally has a small non-diverse group of sycophants and members. The millions of Americans supporting Ron Paul hardly make them a cult group. I think it best to describe Ron Paul simply as a man. Something tells me that’s what he would want to be referred to, a man. He is also an American hero who served his country for five years as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. After his tour of duty, Dr. Paul practiced medicine as an obstetrician and gynecologist, delivering more than 4,000 new born children before beginning his service as a Republican Congressman in 1976. He currently serves on the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Financial Services and has served our country well by his standard of upholding the Constitution and telling the truth, even though that truth is something no one on either party line wanted to hear.

Clearly Shrum has it all wrong. Ron Paul isn’t a cult. The real cult is this American Nightmare that millions of Americans tune into daily like that early 1970’s vampire soap opera Dark Shadows. Only this soap opera is the longest running cult in America, the TV and media woven charade of convincing Americans that the Government knows what is best for them. That, like Jonestown is what happens when “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Ron Paul a cult? Why, because he snapped the smelling salts and broke the barriers of party line politics across race, creed, color, gender, religion and profession? Why, because he teaches personal sovereignty, not group immolation? Why, because he’s a champion of personal excellence and he believes like millions of Americans that working hard to achieve goals is the best form of building foundations for the future? Why, because he believes in using wisdom, learning for past mistakes, and subscribing to sense and sensibility is better than forming and believing lies? Why, because he’s been telling everyone for years what has been going on regarding the collapse of our economy and nobody likes to hear the truth?

So when I ask my friends, family and associates, “Why do you say that he can’t win? What’s wrong with Ron Paul?” Each and every one of them answered, “Nothing.” So I ask, “Isn’t there anything you don’t like about him?” Each and every one of them answered, “No, I like him.”

And that too is the problem for the GOP. There’s nothing wrong with Ron Paul.

Perhaps if he were a dashing version of George Clooney in a tuxedo, twenty-five years younger, we could all use the classic American vanity tool of mirror-mirror to fool ourselves that this guy Dr. Ronald Ernest Paul looks Presidential. Well, for me, I don’t quite care what he looks like other than looking like the winner that he is. Ron Paul is a winner. He’s earned that title the old fashioned way. He’s taken the long, consistent and painful road and scored the many years of wisdom that Americans deserve to have bottled up for use by their Commander-In-Chief and not some self-aggrandizing, ever morphing “bromine of change” that makes a Chinese Trigrams in the I-Ching look like child’s play. Because if I’ve learned one thing about the concept of “change” in America that I’ve come to believe in, is that the more they say things change, the more they definitely stay the same.

So as long as this rocket man septuagenarian keeps out running his rivals on news casts, guest appearances, debates and all the while still manages to meet his voting obligations and debt of service in Congress, I’ll take this winner over any other GOP loser buffoon who dares to flip-flop his way to the center of the divide that conquers. For that center, that used to be a mere line in the sand for a playful tug-o-war, has now become a cavernous divide. And that cavern has gotten far wider and more ravenous in the midst of a dangerous battleground – this present day one-party political cult-like system that continues to draw American lemmings into the abyss from both sides.