In hitching his wagon to Paul, is Robideaux taking on the taint of racism, whack-job conspiracy theories and anti-scientific ding-battery that have long plagued Rep. Ron Paul?
Robideaux
State Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette, the recently appointed chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee and senior member of the Lafayette delegation at the Capitol, stunned no small number of local Republicans including, according to sources, several friends over the weekend when he came out in support of Texas Rep. Ron Paul's long-shot bid to win the GOP presidential nomination. Not only did Robideaux announce his support for Paul, the independent-turned-Republican lawmaker is co-chair - along with former state GOP co chairman Charlie Davis - of Paul's Louisiana campaign.
"Ron Paul is the only Republican running for President who has the credibility to actually follow through on his commitment to stop the runaway train of federal bureaucracy and spending," Robideaux wrote in a press release touting the endorsement. "None of the other Republican candidates have offered a plan to make any meaningful cuts in federal spending. In fact, the other candidates only seem interested in wearing the conductor's hat and tooting the horn a few times as the train goes over the cliff."
Paul is considered a fringe candidate within the Republican establishment in large part due to his anti-orthodoxy on issues like the War on Drugs and U.S. military intervention in foreign affairs - positions that have also made him attractive to young voters.
But in hitching his wagon to Paul, is Robideaux taking on the taint of racism, whack-job conspiracy theories and anti-scientific ding-battery that have long plagued Paul and which ultimately make him an untenable candidate? Paul has yet to adequately explain those knee-jerk, racist newsletters published under his name in the 1980s and '90s, or his routine praise during the Clinton years of the militia movement that produced domestic terrorists like Timonthy McVeigh, or his claims that Israeli spies were behind the first World Trade Center bombing, or his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the establishment of the federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; or his dismissive views of the scientific consensus on climate change and evolution or his vows to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and leave the safety of Americans' drinking water and food supply to conscientious corporations.
Read more on Robideaux's endorsement here.