Revolution PAC’s video features James Williams, an African-American of Matagorda County, Texas, who brought his wife into the hospital in the early 1970s when her pregnancy suffered complications. Unable to find immediate medical assistance, possibly because of racism against interracial couples (his wife is white), Williams was at a loss as to what to do until (as he puts it) Dr. Ron Paul came “to my rescue. He just stepped in and went to work with my wife.” After delivering a stillborn child, Paul told Williams he would take care of the bill and he did. “I never got a bill from the hospital or anything,” Williams recalls in the ad.
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Dr. Paul had been attacked in the media recently because newsletters sent out under his name in the 1980s and 1990s had included a handful of racist remarks. Dr. Paul said he hadn’t written the comments or seen them before they were published, but took responsibility for their being published and claimed he had mismanaged the newsletter business.
“Management experience”
One of the most-stressed themes among Ron Paul’s opponents, especially the other frontrunner Mitt Romney, is that management experience is important to a presidency. Since the newsletters became public issues in 1996 (during his run to return to Congress from his medical practice), Dr. Paul has stressed he was focused upon his medical practice. The video subtly backs up Paul’s statements on the newsletter, while highlighting his management skills as a physician when dealing with life-and-death issues.
Management experience is something that Republicans have tried to capitalize upon in past elections about Obama, and Mitt Romney will undoubtedly stress this in his campaign. Romney has been a CEO of private companies, as well as a Governor of Massachusetts.
But executive experience alone is no sure-fire guarantee of a successful presidency. Texas Governor George W. Bush had lots of managerial experience when he was elected President in 2000, but left office presiding over an economy and foreign policy in shambles. Likewise, Obama now has experience as an executive, and his decisions hardly make him a better choice as President than anyone who can be picked out of a phone book or a union hall meeting.
Voters will likely decide the presidency on the basis of the candidates’ knowledge, consistency, and positions on the issues rather than their managerial experience. On that count, Rep. Paul has a decided advantage. While his Republican opponents were telling the world that the economy seemed fine in 2007, Paul had been already been warning of an impending bust in the housing and financial bubble for more than five years.
For example, Mitt Romney had been asked in an October 9, 2007 presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan, if the nation was sliding into a recession. Romney denied the nation was sliding into a recession, claiming:
It’s inexcusable that Michigan is undergoing a one-state recession, that the rest of the country is growing and seeing low levels of unemployment, but Michigan is seeing ongoing, high levels of unemployment, almost twice the national rate.
Meanwhile, Ron Paul said in that same debate:
Today, this country is in the middle of a recession for a lot of people. Michigan knows about it. Poor people know about it. The middle class knows about it. Wall Street doesn’t know about it. Washington, D.C., doesn’t know about it.
But it’s because of the monetary system and the excessive spending. As long as we live beyond our means we are destined to live beneath our means.
Of course, Paul had warned about a housing bubble/bust as early as 2001 with amazing specificity. And that knowledge may eventually prove to be far more compelling to voters than managerial experience.
Thumbnail photo of Ron Paul: screen grab from the ad
