Has Ron Paul Formed a Political Alliance With Mitt Romney?

Santorum claims two are in cahoots, Rand Paul would be “honored” to be VP pick

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, February 23, 2012

Special comment from Alex Jones: Ron Paul is an intelligent man of total integrity. I am willing to wait and see how this all shakes out before passing judgment. However, just the idea of Paul’s campaign working with Mitt Romney to do some kind of political deal seems like a bad idea, and my initial reaction is that it’s unlikely to come to fruition.

The suggestion that Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are in cahoots because Paul is in the frame to be Romney’s VP pick has again surfaced following last night’s Republican debate in Mesa, Arizona, after which Rick Santorum claimed the two were coordinating attacks against his candidacy.

“You have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they’ve got going together,” Santorum told reporters. “Their commercials look a lot alike and so do their attacks.”

Santorum’s campaign strategist John Brabender repeated the charge, stating, “Clearly there’s a tag team strategy between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. For all I know, Mitt Romney might be considering Ron Paul as his running mate. Clearly there is now an alliance between those two and you saw that certainly in the debate.”

This is by no means the first time that the notion of Ron Paul becoming Romney’s VP has been mooted.

As we reported earlier this month, GOP strategist Jack Burkman put his reputation on the line during an appearance on Fox Business when he boldly predicted that Ron Paul would be on the Republican ticket as a result of a brokered convention.

“The likely leader will be Romney, but he won’t have enough delegates to win,” Burkman told Judge Andrew Napolitano, forecasting that Romney would pick Paul as his VP because “Gingrich and Santorum have extremely high negatives, nobody in their right mind would want them on the ticket.”

“I am now affirmatively predicting that Ron Paul will be on the ticket, I’ll lay odds,” emphasized Burkman.

The idea of Paul being subordinate to Romney, an establishment type with flip-flopping political positions, has split Paul supporters, with the majority of them seemingly hostile to any kind of deal being done that could compromise Ron Paul’s legacy as a rock when it comes to standing by his principles.

However, others might suggest that Ron Paul maneuvering himself into a position where he will be one step away from the office of President in a potential Romney administration merely represents a smart political ploy, a way of beating the establishment at their own game. After all, Rand Paul’s successful Senatorial campaign, after which he has proven his stripes as a champion of liberty, was achieved partly by pandering to establishment Republican rhetoric on a limited number of issues such as the Iranian nuclear issue.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

When reporters asked Rand Paul, a Tea Party favorite, what his response would be if Romney approached him with the offer of VP, he hardly poured cold water on the idea.

“I don’t know if I can answer that question, but I can say it would be an honor to be considered,” said Senator Paul.

Ron Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton has also promoted Rand Paul as a suitable VP. “Any Republican should be looking at Rand Paul as a potential running mate, because he’s the smartest guy in the room. And he has tremendous credibility with conservatives. Any Republican should have Rand Paul on his short list,” Benton told the Dallas Morning News.

While Ron Paul himself would never endorse Romney, some have speculated that the GOP establishment has infiltrated the Paul campaign in a desperate bid to prevent Paul from running third party. Certain Paul campaign officials are ready to “sell out” on huge areas of Paul’s platform – such as non-interventionism – in the belief that it will give them a seat at the table in a Romney administration.

For their part, the Romney campaign has completely dismissed the idea of an alliance with Ron Paul.

“If ever there was an iconoclast who got up there and said what he believed, it’s Ron Paul,” said Stuart Stevens, Romney’s chief strategist.

“The President of the United States’s political action committee is now running ads that are just like Rick Santorum’s. Is Rick Santorum coordinating with the President of the United States? I don’t think so,” Stevens added, labeling Santorum’s claims “whiney silliness” and a means of distracting from legitimate criticism of his conservatism.

Given the overwhelming amount of evidence that suggests the Republican establishment is trying to cheat Ron Paul out of being able to build the kind of momentum that could see him challenge Romney, has the Paul campaign attempted to one-up the system by pulling off such an audacious political stunt?

What do you think? If in fact Ron Paul is coordinating with Romney as a shortcut to securing an influence in the next administration, whether through his son Rand or himself being in line for the VP slot, is this a necessary evil where the rewards outweigh the costs, is it a clever political move, or does it represent an abrogation of the principles that helped build the Ron Paul Revolution in the first place?

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

This article was posted: Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 5:50 am

---

---

---

---