A liberal columnist for the Badger Herald at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has seen the future, and it’s Ron Paul:

Over the past 40 years, the trend among young political activists has been the same: The young Left has fought the older generations of the Right (perhaps because it’s simply more fun), with no thought to their emerging antagonists, focusing attention instead on people whose influence and power will naturally wax and wane (i.e., they’ll die soon.) The young Right, oppositely — since the days of Goldwater onward — has insisted on confronting the young Left in a no-holds-barred battle for future generations of influence. This strategic difference goes far toward explaining the inevitability of the Reagan Revolution and, to a lesser extent, the success of George W. Bush.

Young Americans for Liberty is, as of now, a fledging organization (though I counted 168 campus chapters nationwide on their website). But it has my vote for the right-wing student organization likeliest to effect genuine realignment within the Republican Party as we enter the era of bank takeovers and public option health care reform. Now economic issues, not foreign policy matters, have taken center stage in American politics. Many conservative young people, who will be responsible for whatever realignment takes place, seem utterly uninterested in obsessing about terrorism and foreign policy matters; the Ron Paul line works just fine for them. Ron Paul is, at least from my calculations, a rambling reactionary. But there is a modest chance he — and not Mssrs. Obama and McCain — will emerge as the transcendent figure from the 2008 presidential race.

This is a good place to mention that the third issue of YAL’s official publication, Young American Revolution is out now and includes articles be Jim Antle, Justin Raimondo, Glenn Jacobs (WWE’s Kane), former Rep. John N. Hostettler, and yours truly, as well as young talents such as Bonnie Kristian, Kelse Moen, George Hawley. Subscribe by joining YAL (if you’re under 40) or donating $50 or more (if you’re an older American for liberty). Help take the campuses, and the country, back from the militarists of the Right and the centralizers of the Left — and the centralizers of the Right and militarists of the Left, for that matter.

Filed under: Liberty, Ron Paul, academia