Comment: I'm not looking for perfection

Fonta, thanks for the thoughtful comments. Those of us who stand on the constitutional principles of strictly limited government regardless of convenience must be aware of and point out what we see as obvious flaws and weaknesses.

IMHO, RP's strength is in consistently advocating movement toward the ideal, starting from the present state of affairs, which is very far gone in the wrong direction. That is why I support his candidacy: he is obviously head-and-shoulders superior to anybody we have had the opportunity to vote into office, possibly since the Founding Fathers, who were not perfect either, so what?

Like many people, I disagree with RP on this or that policy, this or that method. But when he says that the business of government is to protect and advance liberty, not to redistribute wealth, I believe him and I am content to argue the details later.

Concerning tactics on the earmark question, I think what will work best, at some point (hopefully, an early opportunity of his own choosing), will be to just give a speech on the subject, including frank discussion of his own compromises. I don't see this as a top priority, since there are much bigger trillion-dollar fishes to fry. But I believe that it will be necessary when the battle gets really close and dirty.

But please, everybody, let's not pretend that there's "No pork here"! It's kind of embarassing and simply won't work. Accentuate the positive, instead. There is plenty of it out there to be found and bragged about.