For three decades, the libertarian-leaning Texan has preached limited government, a smaller role not only domestically in the form of lower taxes but also abroad, with a less adventurous foreign policy.

“Right now your biggest threat comes from your own government,” Paul said.

More than 100 people turned out Saturday morning in Carroll to hear Paul speak at Santa Maria Winery. Paul delivered opening remarks and then turned the event into a town-hall-style meeting, fielding audience questions.

Paul finished third at 12 percent behind businessman Herman Cain (23 percent) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (22 percent) in a Des Moines Register Iowa Poll of likely Republican caucus-goers released Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul reiterated his fiscal message in Carroll Saturday and made clear that he would only seek the White House a member of the GOP. (Photo: Douglas Burns) 

On Saturday, Paul, a former Libertarian Party White House candidate, said he’s in a strong position as a Republican in the 2012 field and dismissed any speculation of a third-party candidacy.

“I have no intentions of running in a third party,” Paul said.

In his remarks Paul said that government reaction to crisis should to be pull back, grow smaller and allow free will and the marketplace to work.

“With each crisis it seems like the government grows,” Paul said.

He added, “It just has led to all this debt and all these problems we’ve had.”

Paul called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that the United States has been involved in Afghanistan twice as long as the duration of World War II. The two wars are costing the United States $4 billion a month, he said.

Removal of troops would not only correct an entry into the conflicts on what Paul called “false pretense,” but also spur the American economy.

America’s largest defense concern now should be the nation’s economy, the Texan said.

“If we’re in the wrong places at the wrong time, it doesn’t serve our defense,” Paul said.

Paul also calls for cuts in military spending.

“How many weapons do we need?” he said. “Who is going to invade us?”

Paul said his foreign policy positioning should not be interpreted as isolationism. He would use diplomacy, not force, to advance U.S. interests.

“Using force doesn’t work and it’s very costly,” Paul said.

And Paul said he would be consistent.

“We were on the side of bin Laden,” he said. “We were on the side of Saddam Hussein.”

One audience member questioned Paul about farm subsidies. Paul noted that he has represented farming areas of Texas but opposes subsidies.

“I’ve not supported farm subsidies,” Paul said. “I think it distorts the marketplace.”

He added, “Subsidies tend to make people soft.”

Paul said Americans demonstrating now, either in the tea party movements or Occupy Wall Street groups, appear to break into two categories: people who are scared they won’t get their government handouts and those who are tired of paying for big government.

Paul said he is firmly in the latter category.

“To me, liberty is one clear package,” Paul said.

The New Hampshire primary is particularly important for Johnson’s long-shot candidacy. He is pro-abortion rights, supports marriage equality and marijuana legalization, positions that make him anathema to Iowa’s social conservative caucus voters. His campaign has counted on performing well in New Hampshire, which is known for its libertarian bent.

In his most recent debate performance, Johnson gained brief national attention for joking that his neighbor’s dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than President Obama. He also repeatedly touted his proposal for a balanced budget amendment, no doubt in the hope that Republican voters would respond more to his fiscal conservatism than to his social liberalism.

According to Democracy in Action, Johnson has spent more time in New Hampshire than any other GOP presidential candidate, a total of 18 visits and 70 days total. His presence in the state has eclipsed even fellow former Gov. Jon Huntsman (Utah), another candidate distrusted by social conservatives who has spent a total of 42 days in New Hampshire.

The New York Times’ Michael Shear notes that had the early winter storm predicted for the East Coast this weekend “swept in 24 hours earlier, Mr. Johnson might have found himself out of luck.”

Minnesotans for Limited Government is a conservative political action committee that favors smaller government and supports Ron Paul for president. It came out against the GOP-backed anti–gay marriage amendment this week.

“It has always been the stance of MNLG that marriage is a sacrament, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the state. We do not approve of any amendment or legislation that further seeks to define Marriage, because it is an infringement on two ideas,” wrote the group’s chair, Jake Barnett. “First, it reinforces the idea that the Government has the right to treat certain individuals differently than others, and second, it further removes Marriage from its original jurisdiction as a sacrament of faith.”

Barnett said that MNLG believes the state should not be involved with religious marriage.

“Under our policy, both heterosexual and homosexual couples could have their unions recognized by the state, but could not call their union a Marriage unless they sought the blessing of a Church. We do not believe any Church should be compelled to marry same-sex couples, but at the same time we respect the rights of Churches to do so if they choose.”

LGBT conservatives have also found the amendment problematic. The Minnesota Log Cabin Republicans are lobbying aggressively against the measure.

“In 2010, Log Cabin Republicans celebrated when the GOP took control of the Minnesota House and Senate. We looked forward to Republican legislators obeying a voter mandate to put a laser focus on the out-of-control spending at the State Capitol. It is deeply disappointing to see members of our party turn away from that mission in favor of a divisive social agenda,” Ken Smoron, Log Cabin’s vice president, said in a statement. “At a time when job creation, the economy, taxes, and the state’s budget are of utmost concern for Minnesota families and businesses, the proposed amendment is anti-liberty, anti-family, and a distraction that Minnesota just can’t afford.”

He added, “If we want to be more than a one-term majority we must focus on the issues that unite us as Republicans and Minnesotans. The days of using the lives of gay and lesbian Americans as a political wedge issue are over.”

The Libertarian Party of Minnesota held an “unusual” special meeting on May 7 to deliberate on the amendment. Party officials there unanimously condemned the marriage amendment.

“The proposed Gay Marriage Ban would expand government control and restrict the freedom of consenting adults to live their own lives as they choose. Libertarians believe that marriage is a private matter between individuals,” the party wrote. “We believe that marriage is a fundamental human right, and that all personal relationships, including marriage, should be at the sole discretion and agreement of the individuals involved, as well as any family, friends, or religious institutions they may choose to involve.”

It added, “We also oppose any attempt to place a marriage ban before voters, as the trappings of democracy do not legitimize infringements upon personal liberty; a 51 percent majority does not have the right to force its will upon the other 49 percent. We instead support a free society, where 1% can still be free to live their own lives as they choose, even if 99% might disapprove.”

The party also said it supports the repeal of the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, which bars same-sex couples from marrying.

The party’s vice chair, S.L. Mallek, appeared on the Late Debate, a conservative talk radio show in the northern Twin Cities suburbs.

“It’s about having parents that care about the child, not the gender of these parents,” Mallek said.

The Late Debate is hosted by Jack Tomczak, who has worked for Rep. Michele Bachmann and Tom Emmer, and Ben Kruse, a designer and media consultant who’s done work for a number of Republican campaigns.

Kruse agreed with Mallek. “I think if this passes, in 20 years, it will be repealed. I think Republicans will be on the wrong side of history on this one.”

Mallek added, “Government trying to legislate personal relationships… that’s not pro-liberty.”

In a separate episode of the Late Debate, Kruse and the Minnesota Family Council’s Tom Prichard engaged in a heated debate on the conservative principles regarding support or opposition to same-sex marriage.

“What it boils down to: Straight marriage isn’t very good,” Kruse said. “So why are we trying to exclude people who haven’t been given the opportunity to prove they can be very good parents.”

He said the gay marriage debate “distracts us from the parenting problem in this country.”

Listen to the debate between Kruse and Prichard:

Some Republicans have come out in support of same-sex marriage in recent months as well. Rep. John Kriesel, R-Cottage Grove, recently told the press that he opposes the amendment. “I look at it as: We are all equal,” he said.

Marriage equality seems to be an issue that is drawing GOP supporters elsewhere, too. Longtime GOP donors are starting to back efforts to make same-sex marriage legal in New York, with GOP contributors like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Paul E. Singer, described by the New York Times as “one of the most generous Republican donors in the country,” kicking in funds.

“I think it is important in particular for Republicans to know this is a bipartisan issue,” Republican donor Daniel S. Loeb told Times. “If they’re Republican, they will not be abandoned by the party for supporting this. On the contrary, I think they will find that there is a whole new world of people who will support them on an ongoing basis if they support this cause.”

Specifically, Coulson took to task a short op-ed Rhee wrote for the Huffington Post in which she explains, “schools that receive public funding to educate poor kids ought to be held accountable for student progress…like public schools, they should have to measure academic growth in objective ways, such as on standardized tests.”

The Cato blogger counters:

But isn’t this precisely the sort of “accountability” to which state-run schools are already subjected in minute detail, and which has coincided with stagnation or decline in academic achievement for two generations (depending on the subject) and a catastrophic productivity collapse? It’s worth noting that it is the freest, least regulated, most market-like education systems that consistently produce the most effective, efficient schools.

Education reformers who seek to use public tax dollars to subsidize private school tuition costs for poor students in under-performing classrooms are careful to frame their argument in non-partisan terms. The American Federation for Children, a leading school choice interest group, went to pains at their recent national summit stressing that point.

Historically, school choice players have been mostly Republican lawmakers and lobbyists. Yet the movement has hit its stride recently in calling upon a new cohort of Democrats fed-up with inner-city school decay. Whatever lip service Democratic school-choice advocates pay to transcending ideology, expecting its wing of pragmatic progressives to tow the line on a laissez-faire approach to education seems unlikely.

Indeed, the May print issue of Reason magazine makes clear “the conversion of some prominent Democrats has brought energy and life to the pool of exhausted political players.”

So far the movement has been shouldered by a more Libertarian wing. Sharing the reform space with the more regulatory-mind cohort is bound to cause tension.

“I’ve spent my entire life watching government spend more money than it takes in. My entire life I’ve believed this to to be unsustainable,” Johnson said during an interview with The Iowa Independent at a coffee shop in Ames. “I think we’re here, I think we’re here right now. I think we’re on the verge of an imminent financial collapse unless we fix government spending.”

Johnson has been traveling the country with Our America Initiative, a 501(c)4 nonprofit political advocacy committee, spreading that message. He’s made stops in Iowa before, and stirred media speculation about a possible presidential run in 2012. Because of his nonprofit status, however, he refuses to give any clues, other than he wants to speak in Iowa to at least influence the debate when caucus time comes.

Fred Thompson had some legal issues during his campaign for crossing the line over his nonprofit status, Johnson said, “and I hope the fact that he was a 501(c)4 isn’t a portend for how successful this might be.”

His first trial run may come this weekend when he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, and has his name included in the straw poll.

But even if he’s not running for office, at least not yet, he already has a plan for how to trim the deficit, starting with entitlement programs and national defense.

“We’re nation building all over the planet when we have our own nation to build,” Johnson said.

Johnson initially thought the invasion of Afghanistan was totally warranted, with America sending the military to take out Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. But they’re not there anymore, he said.

“I would get out Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow believing that the issues we will face getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow will be the same issues that we’ll face 25 years from now, if that’s when we finally decide to get out,” Johnson said. “Worst of all, more service men and women will lose their lives.”

Beyond the Middle East, Johnson says he’s confounded on why the U.S. still has troops in Europe.

“I can’t find anyone who thinks that’s warranted,” he said.

Johnson explained the U.S. is spending 52 cents out of the worldwide dollar on military spending, while China is spending 9 cents of that dollar.

“If we reduce our expenditures to where we’re spending 29 cents of the dollar,” Johnson said, “it’d still be triple of what China’s spending.”

If Johnson does run for the 2012 GOP nomination, he would enter the race with similar platform stances as U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) did in 2008.

The libertarian leaning Paul was the only Republican advocating immediate draw downs of military operations in the Middle East and trimming national defense. And Paul finished ahead of higher-profile candidates like Giuliani and Thompson, and he gained more votes than Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and John McCain in a primary at least once. He also built the grassroots “Ron Paul Revolution,” laying out a lot of policy stances adopted by tea party groups.

Johnson doesn’t buy the theory that less money means the country is less secure.

“I don’t necessarily agree that by cutting money that we can’t in fact be smart and that we can’t in fact retain a really strong national defense,” Johnson said. “But a national defense as opposed to what seems to be a very strong offense.”

Tackling entitlements

The former New Mexico governor also has his eyes on tackling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Johnson suggested raising the retirement age and raising the income threshold subject to social security tax.

“A reduction perhaps of some benefits, not big here, just a slight reduction if you will,” he said. “And perhaps a means testing for all of that.”

He said Medicaid and Medicare should be “block granted” — giving states a block grant without mandates from the federal government about how to issue it.

Johnson is perhaps best known for his outspoken advocacy for legalizing marijuana and ending the war on drugs. This is atypical for a Republican, ever since Richard Nixon started the war on drugs, and Ronald Reagan ramped up the effort. And although the Iowa Democratic Party has the idea of decriminalizing marijuana in their party platform, few politicians, if any, seek action on the issue.

During the recession, debate began in some states to legalize and tax marijuana to boost government revenues.

“A to Z, I’m opposed to the drug war, A through Z,” Johnson explained. “Taxes would be part of it, yeah, that’s the T. [And we could] redirect the resources to real crime, as opposed to an arguably victimless crime.”

Like Paul and the tea party crowd, Johnson advocates scrapping entire departments to save the federal government money, such as the Department of Education.

It’s clear Johnson believes if he ran he’d have a chance at success. He points to the fact he was elected, then re-elected in New Mexico, where it’s a two-to-one ratio Democrats to Republicans.

“I’m a Republican, I remain a Republican,” he said. “But I’m flattered by statements that would say these are libertarian ideas. Libertarians don’t get elected to office and I got elected to office. And I’m saying this in the context that these ideas resonate with people when they’re actually implemented.”

Johnson said his experience as governor was built around a cost-benefit analysis for everything. It lead him to oppose the death penalty, not only because mistakes are sometimes made, but because with court proceedings for appeals it’s cheaper to lock someone up for life than to put them to death. He also privatized prisons in New Mexico.

He’s spoken to more than 400 groups in 32 states, including four trips to Iowa. Shortly after the interview in Ames, he left to speak with a tea party group in Mason City. He rode RAGRAI in 2010 and said he plans to ride it again this summer.

When asked about the reception he’s gotten, Johnson said it’s been really good, and if it wasn’t he wouldn’t be here right now.

Gov. Gary Johnson (R-N.M.) on deficit reduction: “Let’s start with the big four” by TylerKingkade

Rep. Mark Kirk, who could become the next senator from Illinois, said at a recent debate, “I think all of the groups entering Illinois to support my opponent and the ones trying to support me should reveal their donors and be fully transparent.” Likewise, Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck: “I think it is important that people know who is paying for the ads.”

So do we. If Mr. Kirk or Mr. Buck end up in the Senate, we hope that they – and other colleagues will cut off the flow of secret money before even more gushes forth in 2012.

You could make a case for adding Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul to the list, too, at least when it comes to the issue of barring federal contractors from lobbying or contributing to congressional campaigns.

“What I would do is that for every federal contract, if you sign a federal contract and we pay you, the taxpayer pays you a million dollars, I would put a clause in the contract that you voluntarily accept that you won’t lobby or give contributions,” he told Rush Limbaugh, “because I think it galls the American people that taxpayer money is paid to contractors who take that taxpayer money and immediately lobby for more money.”

And even Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller has been up in arms about a new Super PAC, Alaskans Standing Together, which is spending loads of corporate money from the parent companies of federal contractors to back his opponent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. He’s even gone so far as to file a complaint about the issue to the otherwise loathed Federal Elections Commission.

Does this mean that any of these candidates would back legislation like the DISCLOSE Act in its present form? Probably not, but it shows that while conservative candidates who possess Paul’s libertarian streak might be all for free corporate spending, they’re not for cozy corporatist arrangements either. To the extent that these interests overlap with those of campaign finance reformers, you might yet see some cooperation after all.

What does Hayek’s book, which was written as a direct response to British wartime debates over the future of the planned economy, have to say about America in 2010? TWI recently put the question to Bruce Caldwell, director of the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University, as well as the general editor of “The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek,” which includes the definitive edition of “The Road to Serfdom.”

Watching Fox News, where hosts have revived at least a superficial popular interest in Hayek, you’d think that the mild-mannered economist was a sort of Tea Party hell-raiser in his day. But one of the things you bring out in your work on Hayek is the extent to which he was well-received across the spectrum.

At the particular point in time in which the book appeared, his arguments were perceived as a reasonable presentation of a specific position, respectfully received by British socialists at the time. In America, the response was much more partisan.

Keynes himself was a fan of the book. At that point in time, both Hayek and Keynes were both liberals who opposed fascism and totalitarianism. They simply differed on what the optimal liberal state should look like. Keynes was a “new” liberal, where Hayek was more of a classical liberal. Both opposed price controls. Neither wanted to go full-hog with regard to central planning, which was on offer in the 1930s.

But since no one is really proposing full-hog central planning today, to what extent has the book become an anachronism?

It’s true the book focuses on the problem of central planning. It was written in response to the British Labor Party platform of the time, which used the term “socialism.” But some of the book’s arguments are applicable today. For example, the nationalization, or socialization, of losses. Hayek was among the first to use the term “too big to fail.” And in general, he was talking about Liberty.

A careful reader, when they get to some of his policy recommendations, will notice that he often sounds like a standard economist of today. He recognizes problems of “externality” and a “social minimum.”

In the Tea Party scene and on Fox News, you sometimes see the book in the context of opposition to any and all government intervention in the economy. Is “The Road to Serfdom” a proto-libertarian tract?

I hear some of the Tea Party people say they don’t want big government, but that they like Medicare. So I don’t necessarily think there’s a consistent philosophy that’s out there that’s embracing this book.

It’s important to note that “The Road to Serfdom” is a full-fledged attack on socialism and totalitarianism. I don’t see it as a libertarian handbook. Hayek never wrote anything that could be conceived as anything like that. He always was writing at a very high level of generality. Even if you look at the last third of the “Constitution of Liberty,” where he talks about Social Security and price controls, he keeps things at a really high level of generality. Hayek was a founder of the Mont Pelerin Society in the 1940s, which was home to a range of liberals in the European sense. I’ve yet to be able to find Hayek’s views on antitrust laws, and this could not be a more important topic. He is not a policy wonk; you can’t study his work and get a blueprint for how to organize society.

People from both the left and the right have always found things to like and dislike in Hayek. To this day, there are people associated with the Ludwig Von Mises Institute who consider him a social democrat, which is not a term of endearment coming from the Von Mises Institute.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) (ZUMApress.com)

The news that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had won the 2010 CPAC presidential straw poll was leaked early, to soften the blow. Before GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio had even begun to click through a Powerpoint presentation that shared the results, reporters were informed of Paul’s easy, 31 percent victory over nine Republicans tipped as serious 2012 contenders. Those reporters started to write stories on Paul’s surprise win, waiting for the official announcement — and an explosion of jeering and booing in the main ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Sighing with relief, press aides for the annual conservative conference made sure that the on-site media had heard that reaction.

[GOP1] Just as relieved were mainstream GOP activists and traditional conservative thinkers who were pondering ways to make the party electable again. “I think Mitt Romney’s 22 percent was impressive,” said Rob Willington, a Massachusetts Republican strategist who’d designed GOTV technology for now-Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.). He was reflecting on the poll — not too significant, he said — in Murphy’s, a bar a few blocks from the hotel, late Saturday. Romney’s forces, he said, hadn’t lifted a finger; Paul’s had campaigned for the prize.

In another corner of the bar, conservative author David Frum, editor of Frum Forum (formerly New Majority), brushed off the result. “The Paul people all voted and the others didn’t,” said Frum. “I’m hoping it’s a matter of self-selection.”

The importance of minimizing Paul’s win united conservative activists like almost nothing else that came from the three-day conference. Even Brad Dayspring — who, as a spokesman for GOP whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), counts on Paul for “no” votes — fired off two tweets dismissing the result. But the 2,395 ballots cast were a CPAC record, up from the 1,757 cast in 2009, when Mitt Romney scored his third conservative win. And moments after the Paul results were booed, the crowd gave a roaring ovation to radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck, who rewarded it with a 56-minute lecture on “progressivism’s” war on American values with historical lessons — the evil of the Federal Reserve, the destructiveness of Woodrow Wilson, the folly of “spreading democracy” — that had featured prominently in Paul’s speech, too.

For as little attention as it got — for the first time in anyone’s memory, the news cycle-driving Drudge Report did not even run with the news until the next day — Paul’s victory in an unscientific straw poll revealed plenty about the state of conservatism. Narrowly, it revealed that Paul’s quixotic 2008 bid for president created a significant and growing movement of libertarian-minded teens and twentysomethings whose role in the conservative coalition will become more clear outside of CPAC. More broadly, it provided a look at the ideological hardening going on within the conservative movement as it girds for the 2010 elections. According to some polls, the Republican Party is on track to recover control of Congress and have a voice again in how America is governed. At CPAC, there was far less attention on how the party would govern America than on the need to disavow its past, popular embraces of “big government” — and on the need to embrace a hardcore libertarian philosophy that views environmentalism and the progressive movement as fatal threats to freedom.

Photo by David Weigel

Paul’s youthful crusade of hopeful libertarians — its size and its enthusiasm — was one of the real surprises of the conference. Paul-inspired or affiliated groups occupied five booths in the event’s exhibit hall; the Campaign for Liberty (the organization he launched after folding his 2008 presidential bid), Young Americans for Liberty (the student group launched at the same time), Students for Liberty, the Ladies of Liberty Alliance, and the Future of Freedom Foundation. Libertarian CPAC attendees packed room after room for lectures by the likes of Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano and likely 2012 presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. They passed out a documentary about the Paul campaign, “For Liberty,” and copies of “Young American Revolution,” a magazine for college students with contributions ranging from an essay on economics by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to a Wake Forest University student’s tipsheet on how she organized a blockbuster speech by Paul on her campus.

The Paul-inspired groups were responsible for one of the pivotal moments of the three-day conference. On Friday, Students for Liberty president Alexander McCobin used his speech in the rapid-fire “Two-Minute Activist” line-up to “commend CPAC for inviting GOProud,” a gay Republican group. That got a rise out of Ryan Sobra, an anti-gay activist who followed McCobin and condemned the conference for inviting the group. When he was booed, Sobra confusingly attacked Jeff Frazee — the head of Young Americans for Liberty. But he was onto something — it was the presence of Paul fans, who had crowded into the room for his upcoming speech, that meant Sobra would get more boos than cheers.

“I was thanking my lucky stars that the Ron Paul fans were there,” said Jimmy LaSalva, the executive director of GOProud, in a Saturday interview with TWI. “The Campaign for Liberty deserves a lot of credit for setting that tone.”

Paul’s influence surfaced in other ways that were less helpful for CPAC’s optics. The far-right John Birch Society, of which Paul has been a longtime supporter, made a showy return to the mainstream conservative fold with a co-sponsorship and booth at CPAC; because the organization helpfully offered free, spacious merchandise bags, plenty of CPAC attendees walked around sporting JBS logos. Oath Keepers, a year-old coalition of right-wing military veterans, helped distribute copies of the Paul documentary — a favor to Paul activist Michael Moresco, who had won the organization’s “citizen activist of the year” award for biking from the Statue of Liberty to Alcatraz Prison. “It’s the direction I think this country’s headed,” said Moresco — from freedom to imprisonment.

But far from being controversial, Paul’s critique of conservatism — that the GOP lost its way by growing government and must promise to slash and abolish as much as possible if it wins again — was a constant theme. It was present on Saturday when Ann Coulter, a CPAC star for whom the ballroom filled up an hour before her speech began, argued that conservatives needed to abolish the IRS and the CIA. When she ran out of jokes about John Edwards’s sexuality and Ted Kennedy’s drinking, she suggested that the GOP needed a no-to-everything philosophy similar to Paul’s. She paused and mugged when that inspired a chant of “End the Fed” — a Paul-divined slogan.

“I’m curious about this movement over there for eliminating the Fed,” said Coulter. “Yes, End the Fed.” She answered a Paul fan’s question by admitting that “if Ron Paul supports it and it’s not about foreign policy, I’m for it.”

On the surface, rhetoric like that contradicted a much-noticed CPAC theme — praise for George W. Bush. Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, told TWI that Bush boosterism was a friendly show of support for “our guy” after eight years of drubbing by liberals. And that was it.

“For seven years he didn’t speak at CPAC,” said Norquist. “The eighth year we didn’t want him and he showed up because CPAC was one of the only places he could speak to without being booed. Here was a man who deliberately divorced himself from the movement.” Medicare Part D, the Department of Homeland Security, and all the rest of it hadn’t been forgotten.

Outside of the conference, some critics accused activists of a kind of nihilism that wouldn’t be productive for Republicans. “CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years,” grumbled Mike Huckabee on his Fox News show, “one of the reasons I didn’t go this year.”

Huckabee would only allow that the Paul win reflected “the anger and the mood” that was fueling Tea Party protests and Democratic losses in some key elections. In a separate straw poll question on activists’ opinions of conservative leaders, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) was found to be the most popular figure in Republican politics– 71 percent said they liked him. In the Senate, DeMint has worked to block and filibuster as many Democratic initiatives as possible while proposing government-slashing, entitlement-cutting, brazen bills of the kind Paul’s long discussed. At CPAC, he said he’d rather have a Senate with “30 Marco Rubios” — the Florida candidate for Senate who keynoted the conference — than “60 Arlen Specters.” When TWI asked him how that made sense in the era of constant filibusters, DeMint said a crisis would lead the way to more pure policy.

“In the short term, we can’t expect to get any of our ideas through,” DeMint told TWI. “But at some point, we’re going to be forced to do something. It’s not going to be so much a matter of political philosophy if we can’t pay our debts and we’re facing default. At that point I think you’re going to see even liberals realize we don’t have any choice. We just need to be in a position where we have enough conservatives to come up with some functional policies to get us out of this.” DeMint shook his head. “I hope it won’t take a complete breakdown for us to come together.”

Paul wasn’t around to enjoy his triumph. On Saturday morning, he returned to his east Texas district to debate three opponents in his early March Republican primary. But before leaving on Friday night, he reflected on how and why his constant refrain for fiscal austerity and abolishing most 20th century government expansion had become Republican dogma.

“When I went back to Congress in 1996, Tom DeLay came out to a function in my district,” Paul told TWI. “He came out of it and he said, ‘You know what? Ron said that 20 years ago! Now it’s the same message and 20 more years.’” Paul turned and stopped to talk with a gushing middle-aged fan, then turned back to TWI.

“And with more credibility on the economics!”

The invitation for the RSVP-only event, below the fold:

Reason magazine invites you to join us for appetizers, drinks and the opportunity to meet with Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico and honorary chairman of the Our America Initiative. On Tuesday, February 9th, Gov. Johnson will make short remarks at 6:30 p.m. and will be available to chat throughout the evening.

Johnson, who vetoed 750 bills and never raised taxes in eight years as governor, is outspoken on issues ranging from the deficit to the war on drugs to Afghanistan and Iraq. He is frequently mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

Who: Gary Johnson, Honorary Chairman of the Our America Initiative, and Reason magazine staff including Reason.com Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie

What: Drinks, Appetizers

When: Tuesday, February 9 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Where: Reason’s DC Office

I think if Reynolds were to revisit his quip, he’d have to agree with Yglesias. What, after all, did Bush “get done” on domestic policy? As a libertarian like Reynolds knows, his biggest policy achievements made the government bigger, kicking costs down the road for someone else to pay. In 2001 he made an alliance with liberals and got the No Child Left Behind Act passed. In 2003 he made an alliance with liberals and got Medicare Part D passed. When Bush put his weight behind the sort of reforms that Reynolds likes, and that his base wanted — Social Security reform, for example — it died in Congress.

The big exception to all of this, of course, was tax policy. Bush got enormous supply-side tax cuts through Congress. But as Reynolds must know, those tax cuts didn’t need 60 votes to get through the Senate; they went through the budget process and needed 51 votes. I don’t think anyone would make the argument that tax cuts should have to pass a supermajority threshold. I know very few conservatives who are glad that Democratic filibusters, when the party was at an ebb of 45 Senate seats, could kill entitlement reform. But in our current system, cost-shifting policy like that is easy to pass and large-scale policies are tough to pass — note that “deficit hawks” like Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) are not proposing actual entitlement reforms, but toothless “commissions” to look at those reforms.