Health Care BS

Every party seems to have at least one guest who will not go home, no matter how many hints you drop that the soirée is over.  The Republican Party has just such a guest, and his name is Ron Paul. Republican primary voters have dropped hint after hint that it is time to leave, but he refuses. And, like that proverbial party guest, he looks more pathetic and weird with each passing minute.

This would be bad enough if it were only about him. But his refusal to leave is now doing a serious disservice to the cause of free-market health care reform—a cause he claims to support. The longer he stays in the race, the longer it will be before John McCain can focus on defeating the Democrats who are determined to foist some version of government-run health care on the country.

Moreover, he is throwing away the hard-earned money of his many benighted supporters. This sad coalition of John Birchers, David Duke fans, truthers, and garden variety wackjobs has given him huge amounts of cash which he has squandered for no useful purpose. This chart from The Center for Responsive Politics  shows how much money he has wasted on this charade:

That’s right. This clown has spent $20 million. And what has this fortune bought Dr. Faux? The opportunity to get up on the stage with legitimate candidates and say irresponsible things about foreign policy and downright crazy things about a variety of other issues.

He has just released a statement claiming he won’t mount a third-party campaign, and I hope that’s true. But he still insists that he will fight on in the primaries and caucuses. Bad idea. It’s time for this sad little man to take his tinfoil hat and go home.