The political scene continues to heat up. Herman Cain is out of the race (I think his wife got tired of lying) and now Ron Paul and Donald Trump are going at it.
Trump is planning to moderate a Republican debate and Paul declined the invitation, with some rather scathing words. He called Trump a reality television personality and he said that such a debate would have a "circus-like atmosphere".
Trump fired back and said that Paul has no chance of winning and said that his own poll numbers were higher when he was "running". It is not surprising that Trump came back with something, as he is never one to back down from a fight.
Actually, I think that was Trump's appeal to some people when they thought he might be running. He was very blunt with his criticism of Obama and some people like that. Sometimes he just tells it like it is and people find that refreshing. With that said, Trump is full of himself.
I wasn't sure that Paul should have picked this fight. It's not that I necessarily disagree with the statement that was put out. But sometimes you are just better off going along with it for the time. He would have received more media exposure from the debate and he could have embarrassed Trump there if any stupid questions were asked.
It is hard to decline the invitation just because Trump is a bit of a clown. If that is the case, then Paul should not have participated in that awful PBS debate where the moderators were a bunch of left-wing hacks. Or even worse, how about that CBS debate where he only had 89 seconds to talk during the first hour?
However, I have been having second doubts about my own opinion in the last few hours. There is no guarantee that this debate is going to happen and it may not even be available for most people to watch. If this whole debate blows up, then Ron Paul will come out looking even better.
I actually agreed with something Mike Huckabee said this morning. Although he was touting his own candidate forum that he ran the other night, it was still a good point. He said that it was inappropriate for Trump to be moderating a debate when he is still considering a candidacy for himself.
That is absolutely true. Trump said he can't do anything until his show's contract ends in May, but he is not ruling out a third party run. Hey, maybe we can get one of the current candidates from the Libertarian Party to moderate a debate too.
I remember over a decade ago when Trump was talking about running for the presidency. He floated some ridiculous idea that he would pay off the national debt by doing a one-time wealth tax of 14.25% on everyone with over 10 million dollars in net worth. You can read one current story here.
In 1999, when he came out with this ridiculous proposal, I was not a radical libertarian yet. I was fairly libertarian on economic issues and I thought Trump's proposal was horrible then (and I still do). Not only would this be highly immoral and unfair, the economic consequences would be disastrous as well. It probably would have crashed the stock markets and real estate markets. Some billionaire who all of a sudden had to fork over hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to Washington DC, does not just have that money sitting in a bank account. It is usually tied up in a business or in stock or in real estate or some other productive asset. These assets would have to be sold off in massive amounts in a short period of time.
Of course, Trump was just spouting off at the time, just as he does now. I recall Jesse Ventura supporting him then, and I thought less of Jesse after that. Luckily, Ventura has come to his senses and he is basically a Ron Paul supporter now. He has been really good on social liberties and civil liberties. He still might need some work on economic issues.
In conclusion, we'll see what happens with the whole Ron Paul vs. Donald Trump thing. The best thing would be for Ron Paul to prove Trump wrong by going ahead and winning the Republican nomination. Maybe that would finally shut Trump up, but I doubt it.