http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…

With only 1,448 days left before the 2012 election, you-know-who is making plans to launch another long-shot campaign for the presidency.

So much can happen before Nov. 6, 2012: Hillary Clinton could be on the Supreme Court. Her husband could be getting $400,000 per speech.

There’ll be yet another James Bond actor. Shrek IX will be showing. And Harry Reid will be scowling. Still.

Also, you can bet Rep. Ron Paul will be running for the White House again, probably as a Republican. Not so much to actually win, mind you; RP runs to make a point about less government and foreign intervention.

And anyway by then, at age 77 Paul will be the second oldest guy to launch a losing presidential campaign, behind only Ralph.

Thanks to one of our favorite libertarian writers, David Weigel over at Reason.com, we get a Ron Paul update and a peek inside the opaque window that is the perpetual Paul campaign. Weigel tells us, via Paul’s grandson-in-law Jesse Benton, that the Texas congressman is pondering another run.

Benton says Paul needs to make up his mind soon, like by mid-summer next year, because “those voters in New Hampshire and Iowa expect to see their candidates early and often.”

Benton says Paul “would be very likely to run as a Republican,” in large part because the hated media conspiracy that allegedly ignores him so much gives him more exposure as a GOP candidate than as some kind of fringe nutjob.

With the primaries a dim memory and Paul once again back in the House for an 11th term (unopposed this November because Texas Democrats know a political tornado when they see one), people tend to forget that Paul raised nearly $35 million from his fervent fans.

That’s way more than Mike Huckabee and almost as much as Mitt Romney dished out from his own funds. In fact, Paul raised more money in the third quarter last year than any other Republican.

Of course, Paul’s total $35 million is only about two weeks’ or less take for the ‘08 Barack Obama money-printing machine.

But since when have the odds ever deterred Paul?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is proud of what he sees as his truly conservative credentials. He’s for smaller government, much smaller. He’s for foreign trade but not foreign military involvement. He wants to spend that money wasted on empire-building right back here in these United States of America. He’d also get rid of the Education Department and the Federal Reserve.

His followers, who reverently call him Dr. Paul, like the way he would strictly adhere to the Constitution as he sees it and return more freedoms to the little guy in the face of big government.

Paul fans — regularly called Paulites, Paultards or Paulunteers — also see a gentle humility in the weathered but wise hands of the 72-year-old ob-gyn, who reputedly has delivered some 4,000 infants into life in this wondrous world.

But there seems to be another side to Paul. A mean, vicious, cruel and uncaring side. A side that sees millions of humans — albeit Burmese who are not registered to vote in Texas — afflicted with an historic cyclone, countless thousands of lives lost, devastation everywhere.

And the doting grandfather could care less.

This week when a Congressional resolution came up for a vote merely offering “condolences and sympathy” to the people of Burma affected by the recent deadly cyclone, Ron Paul, the millionaire, was the only member of the entire House of Representatives to vote “No.”

The Myanmar resolution, like all those goofy pieces of symbolic legislation, would have done absolutely nothing for the stricken millions. Not even provided one paper towel. It’s a cheap publicity trick that elected legislators waste countless hours on each session.

Such worthless resolutions don”t even get much publicity anymore. And, to put it in blunt political terms, exactly how strong is the Burmese vote around here anyway?

So Paul’s symbolic stand against symbolic silliness looks good.

But then along come the sharp-eyed folks over at Radaronline.com, specifically Nick Curran, who finds out that Paul’s stand against symbolic silliness when it comes to Asians whose huts and hovels were erased by cyclone, is not quite so principled and a whole lot more enthused about dumb statements of sentiment when the silliness is closer to home.

Come to find out Paul has voted in favor of similar empty resolutions to congratulate the University of Kansas football team for a swell season and winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, to the Louisiana State football team for, golly, winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series and to celebrate the New York Giants for their come-from-behind victory in Super Bowl XLII.

Seriously, what Texas congressman near Houston wouldn’t want to get on the official Congressional record wishing all the best to every one of the good folks up in New York City?

Wait til the Houston Texans find out about that one. Or, worse for Paul, some Dallas fans.

–Andrew Malcolm

As I posted to Andrew’s blog… Less then 30 seconds on Google News search would have rewarded you with: ‘Paul spokeswoman Rachel Mills said the congressman objected to a sentence in the resolution calling on Burma’s ruling generals to postpone a scheduled referendum in order to concentrate their resources on disaster assistance. “It interferes with the internal affairs of another country,” Mills said. “It’s just none of our business.”‘The pointlessness of the resolution itself was not the reason for the vote. It was the fact it tried to instruct the Burmese government on what it should do. As minor as it may appear it’s only a matter of degrees from other interventionist language we place in other resolutions which represent the actual interventionist actions we take. If you want to stop being to bully you ought to stop talking like one too.

As for the other votes on pointless resolutions… there is nothing you can do. Anyone in Congress can bring up any damn resolution they want or talk about whatever they want. If Paul is already in attendance he can vote NA, YAY or not vote. Nothing changes any which way and there is nothing unconstitutional about pointless resolutions. Voting no or not voting sends no message in those cases. In this case however it can. Only reason to vote against the pointless resolutions would be to save the ink given NA is shorter then the other options or to hold an absolute stance against wasting time. The congressmen get paid yearly anyway so I’d much rather them take up their time with pointless congrats resolutions than messing with things that actually effect the real world.