Ron Paul Un-endorses White Supremacist
Matt Welch | May 8, 2008, 1:57pm
Bill Johnson, who is running for Superior Court judge in Los Angeles (with the help of campaign manager Holly Clearman, who is a California coordinator for Paul's presidential campaign), was the author of the 1980s Pace Amendment to the Constitution, which read in part:
No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.
"Thought-tormented Ron Paul fan" Tim Cavanaugh extracts a statement from Paul chief of staff Tom Lizardo:
Over the past several weeks, I have also been involved in assisting Dr Paul with the consideration of candidates who are seeking his endorsement for their campaigns. We have gone through the process of setting up a method by which candidates are to be considered for such endorsements. During that period, we have also received and reviewed requests from dozens of candidates.
Although Bill Johnson's name ended up on the endorsement list, he did not go through this process. In light of this fact, and in light of the revelations regarding his past statements and associations, Dr Paul has retracted the endorsement and hopes that, in the future, the process that has been put into place will mitigate the likelihood of similar errors.
Cavanaugh spars with angry Paul supporters here; Paul supporters argue amongst themselves here; other coverage of Johnson by the Metropolitan News-Enterprise and the L.A. Times' Opinion L.A. blog.
Dave Weigel has been all over the ongoing Ron Paul Republicans story, including a forthcoming column in the July issue.
Karsten Nicholson | May 8, 2008, 2:52pm | #
I've been in Bill Johnson's house. We had our regular Pasadena and Los Angeles Ron Paul meetups in there. There were often over 100 people in there, of all races. He was kind to all of us, and spoke about the importance of tolerance and diversity in the Ron Paul movement. I spoke with my asian friend who was in the Pasadena meetup group. He also expressed shock about these accusations towards Bill Johnson, stating that Bill was very nice and respectful towards him, and even gave him the security password to his house!
I have no idea if Bill really said or did those things, but people change. The Bill Johnson I knew was nothing like the Bill Johnson depicted here. And unlike all you people just anxious to grab onto anything that will help forever destroy the Ron Paul movement, I knew the guy in person. Bryd, one of the most liberal senators, was a former Klansmen.
The more I see stupid shit like this, the more clear it is that these Ron Paul attacks are attacks on the PEOPLE in the movement. Over the past year, I have been to dozens and dozens of Ron Paul events, from marches to rallies to sign wavings. I can absolutely say that the people who showed up to the events were very diverse. There were people there of all ages, races, and backgrounds. Yes, there were blacks there, yes there were asians, yes there were a number of hispanics. They were some of the nicest and most helpful people I have known. If I needed flyers or slim jims, I needed onto to post a message in the meetup and within and hour or 2 I would have a dozen people emailing me telling me I could come over and pick them up. During our rallies and marches, people would share food if I didn't have any, and we would always help each other out. How else does a network of over 100,000 national meetup members for if not for such un-predjeduce hospitality. If you are implying that RON PAUL SUPPORTERS are predjeduce and bigoted, I TAKE GREAT OFFENSE TO THAT. Say what you want about Ron Paul, but please do not diss the movement.
I believe these attacks are attacks against the energetic and enthusiastic movement of ANTI-WAR Libertarian movement. Reason is obsessively anti-drug war, but waffles on intervention vs. non-intervention. You hate the fact that RP can logically and consistently oppose nearly all intervention from a conservative and libertarian standpoint. It was successfuly because the anti-war sentiment is high in America right now, and it's fusion with the anti-government libertarian message created the massive movement. A pro-war Ron Paul would not have had nearly the same impact.
Like it or not, the Ron Paul movement was the biggest and more energetic and amazing libertarian movement they has ever existed in our lifetimes. I marched with literally hundreds of people across santa monica and down the peer for a mock tea party, and holding Ron Paul signs. There was about a thousand people at the USC rally last September. These huge rallies occured all over the country, as we know. It his 20,000 in the rally at the Univeristy of Michigan. It is clear that this bashing of Ron Paul would not be so frequent if it wasn't for the massive amount of DIVERSE support that he had during his campaign.
