Forum Post: 90 seconds. That’s how much of the first hour of last night’s GOP debate was given to Ron PauI

As Ron Lawl 2012 campaign manager John Tate noted of last night’s debate:

“90 seconds. That’s how much of the first hour of tonight’s GOP debate was given to Ron Lawl. 90 measly seconds out of 3,600 seconds. The remaining 3,510 seconds were spent with the other major candidates:

*Declaring their desire to start wars in Iran, Pakistan, and Syria;

*Rehashing their support for torture;

*Agreeing that President Obama has the right to unilaterally assassinate an American citizen without a court conviction;

*Explaining their plans to continue nation-building, policing, and occupying countries across the globe.

John’s point about the time allotted Paul and the positions taken by his opponents is particularly important when you consider that basically the only actual “debate” taking place on stage last night was between Paul and the other candidates, all of whom, with the arguable exception of Jon Huntsman, basically agree with the Obama/Bush foreign policy consensus, as described by Tate above.

Many observers thought an Obama-era GOP might actually begin to question the Wilsonian, police-the-world liberalism that masqueraded as conservatism during the Bush era. Paul wasn’t the only candidate eager for such a debate. As The Politico’s James Antle noted:

Remember the foreign policy debate that was supposed to break out in the Republican Party during next year’s primaries?

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels… ruffled hawks’ feathers by suggesting that America might have to shrink its military footprint around the globe to restore solvency to the federal budget…

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, one of the most successful Republican National Committee chairmen in recent history, sounded a similar note. “Anybody who says you can’t save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon. We can save money on defense… What is our mission? How many [members of] Al Qaeda are in Afghanistan? … Is that a 100,000-man Army mission?”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has also said, “The United States must also become more discriminating in what we try to accomplish abroad… We certainly cannot force others to adopt our principles through coercion…”

Daniels, Barbour and Christie are not running for president… So despite initial impressions that much has changed since 2008, the Republican foreign policy debate may remain Paul versus everyone else.

This bears repeating:

“Despite initial impressions that much has changed since 2008, the Republican foreign policy debate may remain Paul versus everyone else.”

Last night was the first chance the GOP has really had in this election to substantively have the foreign policy debate many in the party believe it must have.

Considering this, giving Ron Lawl only 90 seconds last night was worse than simply snubbing the Congressman again—it was effectively saying that the Republican Party should have no foreign policy debate.