赏析版2011年7-12月经济学人文章(英汉双语对照)汇(5)

Having run for president twice before, he is not naive about politics. He has served a dozen terms in the House of Representatives, failing to find allies for his radical measures. He cannot expect actually to win the nomination, let alone become president. His real aim appears to be didactic: he wants the widest possible hearing for his ideas. And since the financial collapse of 2008, more Americans have indeed been listening. His quest for the Republican nomination that year gave him respectability and an audience he could not reach as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1988.

随着保罗在民调中的崛起而来的是大量对于他真正目的的猜测。过去曾两次竞选总统，他在政治上可不天真。他一共被选担任过十几期的众议员，却一直没找到支持他的极端措施的志同道合者。他并不期望自己会赢得总统候选提名，更不要说当选总统了。他的真实目的似乎是教诲民众：他希望能获得最宽广的平台来传播他的思想。而且在2008年金融危机之后，确实有越来越多的美国人开始倾听他的政见了。那一年他竞选共和党总统候选人赋予他广泛的听众群，并赢得了很高的尊重，这是1988年他作为自由党[注6]总统候选人所无法比拟的。

How long will Mr Paul stay in the race? Though the nomination may be out of his reach, he has dedicated supporters and the ability to raise lots of money through small donations. That could keep him going longer than most of his rivals, and perhaps give him enough delegates to shape August‘s nominating convention in Tampa. Or he could run as a third-party candidate. But that would help Barack Obama, embitter a mainstream party on which he has at last made a big impact and damage his like-minded ophthalmologist son, Rand, now a Republican senator.

保罗会在竞选中呆到什么时候？虽然总统候选提名可能不在他力所能及的范围内，他还有一群尽心尽力的支持者，也有能力通过小额捐款集资。这可能会让他在初选中比大部份对手都能走得更远，也许还会让他赢得足够的选举人票，影响8月在坦帕举行的共和党提名大会的结果[注7]。他也可以选择作为第三党人选参加大选。但是那么做将会帮到巴拉克·奥巴马，招致一个他好不容易才对其产生巨大影响的主流政党的怨恨，也会对他儿子兰德·保罗的仕途不利。兰德和他父亲政见相似，原为眼科医生，现在是共和党参议员。

As Mr Gingrich has learned, rising poll numbers bring extra scrutiny. The Christmas period has revived interest in a group of newsletters published under Mr Paul‘s name in the 1990s, some of which included toxic remarks about blacks and Jews. Mr Paul says that he neither wrote nor approved of those words, and that they do not reflect his opinions. That still leaves him with some explaining to do. It is true that in recent years Mr Paul has stuck to his core principles: sound money, small government, individual liberty and bringing the troops home. But the newsletters shed light on some of the unsavoury fellow-travellers he has collected on his long political road. In the end, Mr Paul‘s obsession with the Fed is an anti-government conspiracy theory. And in America, anti-government conspiracy theories attract a lot of wingnuts, some of whom have never read Hayek or von Mises.

正如金里奇已经体验到的，民调上升就会带来更多的详细审查。圣诞节期间一系列90年代以保罗的名字发表的通讯报道重燃了大众的兴趣，这些报道中的一些含有针对黑人和犹太人的恶毒言论。保罗指出他既没有写过这些报道，对其中的言论也不赞同，而且这些言论并不反映他的观点。就算这样他还是得费心给自己解围。确实，最近几年保罗一直恪守他自己的核心原则：合理的货币政策，小政府，个人自由以及海外撤军。但是这些报道中也透露了保罗在他漫长的政治道路上结识的一些令人不敢恭维的志同道合者。说到底，保罗对美联储的执著就是一种反政府阴谋论。而在美国，反政府阴谋论会吸引大量的政治疯子[注8]，他们中的很多可从没读过哈耶克或冯·米塞斯的书。

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