Even if progressives don't vote for Ron Paul, there are some great reasons why his candidacy is good for the progressive cause and why progressives should support him as the Republican primary candidate of choice.

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Ron Paul is my first choice for a Republican candidate. There. I've said it. Of all the Republicans, he's the one I think is the best. His positions on the constitution, on the war, on globalism on nation building and interventionism are ones I can get behind. He's not perfect, but he's far, far ahead of any other Republican in the race.

This publisher of one of the top five progressive media sites (based on traffic stats from alexa.com) is endorsing Ron Paul for Republican presidential candidate.

Not only am I endorsing Paul, for the Republican presidential candidacy, but I believe his candidacy would be GREAT for the country, win or lose. A strong Ron Paul showing in early primaries will force Democrats to look at a possible horse race between Ron Paul and the elected Democratic candidate. If, for example, Hillary or Obama win, an odd situation will exist-- a Republican with some positions to the left of a Democrat will be running. This will be devastating when it comes to independent voters. It will do one of two things-- force Hillary and Obama to take more progressive positions, which is not really likely. Or it will strengthen the primary campaigns of the more progressive candidates-- Kucinich, Edwards and Dodd.

If it forces Hillary and Obama to the left, it will probably be on the issues Paul is strongest on-- exiting the war, globalism (support for treaties and organizations like WTO, WB, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.) and protecting the constitution. But since both Hillary is so beholding to corporations and so DLC by nature, it is hard to imagine her going there. It's more likely to influence Obama.

Do I think Paul has a shot at winning the Republican nomination? Not a great one, really, but after seeing him on Meet The Press, I give him better odds than before. He did quite well with Tim Russert's efforts to marginalize him. Still, Paul is a huge threat to the powers that be and he will, if his numbers start looking better, be subjected to the same kind of attack Howard Dean suffered when his star started to rise. If Newsweek or Time feature Paul on a cover, look out Ron. The next step will be the high rotation silly image-byte, portraying three seconds of Paul saying or doing something that can be laughed at with contempt, like the mainstream media did to Howard Dean, with his "scream." Dean was not able to survive it and he had his Deaniacs. I don't know how Paul will do under the same assault. Maybe, expecting and anticipating it, he'll have a ready response... after all, as a doctor, he's had to be ready for emergencies all his life.

Even if Paul does not win, another thing he's doing for Progressives is helping a hell of a lot of Republicans to start thinking differently about politics. It's hard to imagine most of the Ron Paul supporters going back to someone like Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee or John McCain, who are all so corporation owned, directed and inspired. The "paulparazzi" are all being primed to vote for a more progressive candidate. If Paul does not win the Republican candidacy, then I expect a huge portion of Republican and independent Paul supporters will move to support the Democratic candidate, as long as it is not Hillary. I think anti-hillary reflexes will prevent support for Senator Clinton.

If Paul fails in the primaries early, then it just may be that some of his supporters even switch party registation to influence the Democratic primary elections. This will be a good thing too.

I'm not saying Ron Paul is perfect. He has some positions that I strongly oppose, that progressives don't like, particularly when it comes to the commons-- on support for education, his opposition to federal regulations-- ie., his libertarian opposition to government. I don't believe in using the nation for a test tube. Libertarianism has NEVER been proven to work for a nation. The US is not the place to test that.

But liabilities included, Ron Paul is good for America, win or lose the primaries. You don't have to vote for him if you're a progressive but here's how you can and should support him.

You can certainly talk to your republican friends and family and support him as their best choice. Getting them to be a Paul supporter is a great first step towards waking up to become a progressive. It's not easy to change basic values and beliefs. Ron Paul can be the catalyst who enables just those kinds of basic belief changes to occur. He's doing it. If you're a progressive, you can use him to help "wake up" right wing thinkers you know.

All that said, in the final horse race, I probably won't vote for Ron Paul if he's running against Edwards, Dodd or Kucinich, or even Obama. I don't think Biden has a shot in hell of winning. But if it's between Paul and Clinton, I'll have to think long and hard. And so will a lot of other voters. If polls were taken now, I think they'd show Hillary way ahead. But as the race progressed, as people got to know Paul, I think it would become a very tough race. Even many progressives would, as many already have, take a serious look at Paul, if their alternative was Hillary. It's going to be an interesting year.

I posted this identical article to dailykos and have been attacked and villified by well over 100 comments. Worse, I was given a formal warning by an editor, I assume, about the posting. If you have a user name on dailykos and want to post your opinion, here's the link

I have to say that I'd heard how nasty , shallow and smallminded commenters on dailykos can be. The fact that so many commented without even reading the posting and then that they reacted to their own, already preconceiced notions, rather than to my actual posting was disappointing, to say the least. Let me make myself clear. I am saying the least because it is disgusting that a purportedly progressive site would behave and allow such behavior. It redoubles my intention to assure that such uncivil nasty commenting does not occur on opednews.com

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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