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Ron Paul

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks for Ron Paul, what with his absurdly racist and homophobic newsletters from the early '90s going public. Well, it doesn't look like it's going to get any better. A former aide to the presidential hopeful is adding to the pile-up, writing a post on a right-wing blog defending the representative as not a racist, but pretty definitely a homophobe.

In his piece, Eric Dondero helpfully explains that Paul is not at all racist, and has even "hired blacks for his office staff" as well has "many Hispanics." However, Dondero adds the following:

"Ron is far from being the hippest guy around. He is completely clueless when it comes to Hispanic and Black culture, particularly Mexican-American culture. And he is most certainly intolerant of Spanish and those who speak strictly Spanish in his presence, (as are a number of Americans, nothing out of the ordinary here.)"

Um, helping or hurting? After the whole race thing is cleared up, Dondero goes on to defend Paul as a supporter of equal rights for gays, but "personally uncomfortable" around them. So much so that the representative once demanded Dondero find an excuse for him to leave a gay supporter's home so he could use the restroom in a nearby fast food restaurant instead. He also once refused to shake hands with a different gay campaign supporter, and reportedly "swatted his hand away."

The intended takeaway here is a little unclear. Dondero's purported point is that all this personal mumbo jumbo isn't nearly as big a problem as Paul's questionable foreign policy stances. However, personal testimony calling Paul racially "clueless" and an apparent believer in the existence of gay cooties seems pretty clearly damning. Maybe the question shouldn't be which glaring problem with Paul's candidacy to focus on first, but if there's anything left to actually like about him?

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Commentarium (5 Comments)

Dec 27 11 - 7:37pm
KingPellinore

Big fucking deal. And I'm "personally uncomfortable" around Ron Paul. Shouldn't every person be?

Dec 27 11 - 8:06pm
Jesse

Trusting Eric Dondero is a mug's game. Google his name and watch the horror unfold.

Dec 27 11 - 8:11pm
Eric

I knew this. I saw him on candid camera getting hit on by Sasha Baron Cohen as Bruno.

Dec 28 11 - 10:39am
ana

I am probably the least knowledgeable when it comes to politics so take my comment with a grain of salt, but wouldn't it be better for someone to be personally uncomfortable around [whatever particular group of people] but still support them and their rights than to be uncomfortable and fight to take away their rights? He supports equal rights even though he's not comfortable with gay people. I think that's at least a step in the right direction away from "ewww ick, gays....no rights for them!" kind of thinking some politicians have.

Dec 28 11 - 1:55pm
LB

I think it's more important to focus on policy, in this case. For example, I'd rather have Ron Paul be "personally uncomfortable" with GLBT individuals and fight for equal rights policies than have Obama be "comfortable" with me and not do a damn thing policy-wise for GLBT rights.

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