In his podcast of 20 October 2008  Leonard Peikoff says he won’t vote for either candidate. Why does he reject the Republican, McCain? Is it because McCain blocked investigation into the looting of the  S&L s  in the 1980s, at the time the biggest financial fraud ever perpetrated? Or is it because he sings Israel’s praises at American-Israeli PAC events? Or because he made Neocon aggression in the Middle East and the lies justifying it part of his campaign platform?  Surely neither of the last two, for like everyone at ARI  Mr. Peikoff worships Israel and calls for war against Iran.

But Mr. Peikoff doesn’t go into details. Instead, he says he won’t vote for any Republican, because  “that party has to be wiped out or severely punished for its affiliation with Evangelicals and with religion more broadly.”  An affiliation vague – we point out – and Evangelicals who threaten you not, while statism is eating you alive. Mr. Peikoff goes on to say that religion, that is, Christianity,  “is the greatest threat to the country, infinitely more so than socialism ... .”

He claims that McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for running-mate proves that Republicans are reaching out to Evangelicals. It could be true but more likely they grabbed a handy lady politician expecting they would be running against Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama. [1]

Mr. Peikoff rejects the Democrat, Obama, too, despite his 2006 midterms pronouncement urging – in the strongest terms – that every Objectivist vote Democrat. [2]  He says that  setting aside everything else, Obama’s affiliation with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was enough for him to reject Obama. And though Obama  “has ties to the Muslim religion ... let’s suppose he’s only a deeply religious Christian. That’s not much better, so I wouldn’t vote for him on religious grounds either.”  In addition Mr. Peikoff – who at times acts as if he is really anti-American – opposes Obama because, and we agree,  “he is really anti-American.”

Mr. Peikoff concludes that we  “have a choice [such] that it would be a disaster if either gets in.”

During the preceding primaries, neither Mr. Peikoff nor anyone else at ARI supported the best man among the contending politicians. They could have helped bring about a real choice for president, if not in this election then in a future one. But far from supporting, they denounced him.

So let’s go back to the time of the 2008 primaries, before the Republican and Democratic nominations.  Though none of the candidates were perfect, or even a better sort of Objectivist,  Ron Paul was easily the best man ever to run for president since Calvin Coolidge.  To repeat: Perfect, no. Objectivist, no. Good, both as to practical and philosophical politics, yes.  If you insist on John Galt for president, read no further – and wait forever, while the Obamas and McCains take over America.

Elsewhere we address Ron Paul’s flaws as a political candidate and show them to be of little consequence. [3]  For now, what does the ARI crowd say about him during this period, the election of 2008? There is practically nothing. Though ARI’s non-profit status didn’t prevent it from expressing an opinion of Bush in 2000, [4]  this election they ignore Ron Paul, officially. Unofficially however, in personal statements, some ARI writers did not ignore him entirely.

Harry Binswanger titles his 4 November 2007 post to readers of his discussion list (HBL)  “Saint (Ron) Paul.”  The post is not public and I haven’t read it but Mr. Binswanger’s snide and witless joke alone misrepresents Ron Paul.  We discuss Ron Paul’s Christianity elsewhere and merely note here that he was the only candidate who warned against the misuse of religion in politics, at one point in his campaign saying (attributing it to Sinclair Lewis):  “When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” [5]

Mr. Peikoff, in his podcast of 23 December 2007, discussed Ron Paul obliquely and then using Yaron Brook as his mouthpiece. He begins by saying that a politician’s party takes precedence over the politician’s personal beliefs and voting record. To keep his political base satisfied in a mixed economy an individual politician must, Mr. Peikoff says, use his power to advance the causes of various pressure groups  “no matter what individuals, with what ideas, hold what offices, in the [party].”  Mr. Peikoff thinks the Republican Party is more dangerous than the Democratic:

And where does Mr. Peikoff get off criticizing any group for Medievalism when ARI is the Western world’s foremost advocate of government institutionalized torture? [6]

According to Mr. Peikoff, though the Democratic Party may seem just as religious as the Republican only the Republicans are  sincere:

Mr. Peikoff goes on to say that the basic political issue today is not what it was fifty years ago, when it was “the individual versus the collective”:

It’s possible a man might be independent enough to be worth supporting, but today, insists Mr. Peikoff, no such man exists:

Whether or not a decent man can get elected president or even nominated, supporting him encourages such men to run in the future and will help them win. It also makes politicians of all stripes competing with him address important issues instead of spouting vague bromides about change.  And even a losing campaign, as long as truth be told, helps educate the public. Supporting a good candidate, as Ayn Rand said of Barry Goldwater in 1964, helps  “preserve two-party government.”

Mr. Peikoff continues:

The problem is getting there. But a campaign, too, provides a  “bully pulpit” – in the form of broadcast speeches, interviews and debates.

Next Mr. Peikoff begins with a general truth regarding the importance of philosophy and segues into more false insinuations about Ron Paul:

With that out of the way Mr. Peikoff finally gets to the point:

There are two more items that ARI or its affiliates published about the coming 2008 election:  “McBama vs. America”  by Craig Biddle (before his falling out with ARI) in the journal The Objective Standard (Fall 2008) and a talk of the same title he gave a few days before the election (29 October 2008) under the auspices of ARI (specifically its now defunct division called the “Ayn Rand Center”).

Mr. Biddle begins his talk by observing that this election is an Objectivist’s nightmare, and asks  “How did we get here?”  One wonders who Mr. Biddle thinks he is to ask the question since he and other ARI associates helped in the getting.  Mr. Biddle’s talk is standard fare denouncing altruism leavened with examples from current events (among which he fails to mention U.S. support of Israel but then ARI has always maintained that support for Israel is somehow in your interest). He makes no mention of religion in his article but discusses it at length in his talk, saying that Obama and in recent years Leftists generally, use religion to justify their socialist causes. McCain, he says, justifies the same sort of causes using ideas traceable to Kant.

Mr. Biddle insinuates that Obama and McCain might be sincere, instead of – we would say – grasping at anything to justify their lord of the manor mentality and greed for the unearned. [8]

That concludes our account of ARI’s output on the 2008 election.  In  Yaron Brook vs. Ron Paul  four years later we offer a few words about the candidate these moralizing hypocrites did their best to smear when they were not evading his existence.