[wvns] RON WHO?
Longshot candidate from Texas, once an unknown, gains on GOP leaders
and rakes in funds
RON WHO?
CAMPAIGN 2008
Carla Marinucci
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
They were a lonely band of rebels until just a few weeks ago, backing
the darkest of dark horse presidential candidates.
But with Republican Rep. Ron Paul's fundraising on the rise - $4.2
million raised on the Internet in one day this month - and his poll
numbers jumping, the Texas congressman might no longer be a "who?" but
a potential problem for leading Republican presidential candidates in
key states such as New Hampshire.
And in California, the state where the 72-year-old doctor-politician
has raised the most money, those who call themselves part of the "Ron
Paul Revolution" couldn't be happier.
Paul's backers are people such as Brad Sanford, 29, a Silicon Valley
tech worker who said he never had been involved in politics or
campaigns until this year.
Sanford, attending a Paul campaign Bay Area "meetup" event this week,
said he first caught Paul's appearances on cable programs like "The
Bill Maher Show," "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert
Report."' Since then, Sanford has registered Republican for the first
time to vote in the California presidential primary on Feb. 5 while
"maxing out" his political donation budget with $2,300 to Paul's campaign.
Sanford now is walking precincts for Paul - another first - because he
said the candidate is strongly against the war in Iraq and can appeal
to millions who believe that America has "strayed too far from our
values" and fundamentals laid out in the Constitution.
"For young people, it's the war; for older people, it's a straight
common-sense approach" to taxes, the economy and values, said Holly
Clearman, California field coordinator for the Paul campaign.
Clearman said the life of a Ron Paul supporter used to be a lonely
undertaking.
"I thought there were only 10 of us, and nobody I knew," she said. But
that changed in recent months as the candidate raised $9 million this
quarter, and "the cat is out of the bag."
Indeed, the meetup group has swelled in recent weeks to more than 400.
At a meeting Monday night, a diverse assortment of hip, 20-something
techies, Financial District professionals and graybeard Baby Boomer
activists jammed into a San Francisco yoga and massage studio to plan
strategy in the decidedly unorthodox presidential campaign.
Paul followers are buoyed by the latest polls from CNN and the New
York Times showing that their candidate has jumped ahead of former
Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in
New Hampshire, the site of the nation's first 2008 primary on Jan. 8.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt
Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain still dominate the race in that
independent-minded, "Live Free or Die" state. But Paul's recent rise
has prompted pundits to acknowledge that the Texan - once dismissed as
a fringe candidate - could have an impact on the presidential race.
Paul's eclectic mix of fiercely libertarian and conservative values
has created a passionate support base that might be unlike any other
candidate in the 2008 presidential race.
The former practicing obstetrician, who has served in the House about
20 of the past 35 years, is vehemently anti-abortion - voting against
federal funding of abortion, stem cell research and even family
planning funding in U.S. foreign aid - and strongly pro-gun rights.
His views have gained him high ratings from conservatives and groups
such as the Christian Coalition and the National Rifle Association.
Paul also is seen as strongly anti-environmental by groups such as the
League of Conservation Voters, which gave him just a 5 percent
legislative rating on his voting record.
But Paul also appeals to progressives on a number of issues: He
supports repealing most federal drug laws, including those against
medical marijuana, is against the death penalty, vigorously opposes
the war in Iraq and is against the Patriot Act and free trade
agreements such as NAFTA.
Indeed, some political analysts suggested he is the 2008 campaign's
political ink blot test - able to represent whatever voters see in him.
"Ron Paul is the perfect place for Republicans who are upset to park
their anger," said Sacramento-based GOP consultant Patrick Dorinson.
Paul, he said, appeals to some voters who are looking for a candidate
who "goes against the grain ... like Ross Perot."
Dorinson predicted that, like Perot's campaign, the Ron Paul
Revolution "will fizzle after the first shots are fired in January. He
has no organization ... it's one thing to say to a pollster what you
will do - and another to actually do it."
Gloria Nieto, a South Bay Democratic activist, said that she's seen
"so much grassroots activism going on for Ron Paul; it's really
plugged in. They feel really strongly that he's the answer." But she
noted that "it's interesting spectrum ... anti-war to anti-choice. Who
are these people?"
Some Republicans said Paul's campaign is the antidote to the
disappointments of the Bush presidency and what they call a straying
from core GOP values.
"The last six years of GOP rule in Washington, D.C., is something most
Republicans would like to forget about," wrote Alan Bartlett, a
blogger on the popular California GOP Web site, Flashreport.org.
"Unfortunately for us, the voters haven't forgotten about it, and they
threw us out of office in 2006. We have a chance to get it right
again, though, by supporting Ron Paul."
That was echoed inside the Ron Paul meetup among eager volunteers
armed with "Ron Paul, Hope for America" signs.
Stephanie Burns, 50, a construction manager from Sausalito who helps
arrange biweekly Bay Area meetings in support of Paul, said the Texas
congressman's campaign - like Democrat Howard Dean's in 2004 - has
skillfully utilized the Internet to reach out to voters who might
otherwise never be connected. "And ever since the $4.2 million, it has
changed things," she said. "There's a lot more recognition by the media."
Burns motioned around the room to some of the people the Internet has
brought to Paul's cause.
"I've never even been interested in politics my whole life," Brandy
Alexander, 34, a UCSF researcher, told the group.
But after she and her boyfriend, William Newby, 28, a computer
programmer, watched Paul slam U.S. involvement in the Iraq war and
expound on his views during the televised GOP debates, they were hooked.
Thanks to Paul, she said, "Now, I find myself borderline obsessed with
it."
===
Ron Paul
Party: Republican.
Birth: Aug. 20, 1935, in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Hometown: Lake Jackson, Texas.
Occupation: Member of House of Representatives.
Education: Bachelor's degree, Gettysburg College, 1957; medical
degree, Duke University Medical Center, 1961.
Political biography: House of Representatives, 1976-77, 1979-85,
1997-present. Libertarian Party's 1988 candidate for president. Ran
unsuccessfully for Senate in 1984.
Professional history: Physician (obstetrician/gynecologist)
1961-present; U.S. Air Force, 1963-65; Air National Guard, 1965-68.
Family: Married, Carol; five children and 17 grandchildren.
Religion: Nondenominational Protestant
Views: Nicknamed "Dr. No" for his willingness to vote against any
legislation he believes increases the size of government. Strongly
anti-abortion and opposed to federal funding for abortions. Gun rights
backer. Has called for an immediate end to the Iraq War. Opposes the
death penalty and free trade agreements. Vowed to abolish the Internal
Revenue Service and phase out the Federal Reserve if elected president.
Web site: www.ronpaul2008.com.
E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci @ sfchronicle.com.
===
Ron Paul on Morning Coffee
http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=138
===
There's war going on right here in America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl1Tuowa_1U
===
Ron Paul: My first actions as president
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/video-network?channel=1&video=79
===
Cheering for Ron Paul
By Robert Scheer
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18766.htm
11/22/07 " The Nation" -- -- What can you get for a trillion bucks? Or
make that $1.6 trillion, if you take the cost of the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars as tallied by the majority staff of Congress's Joint
Economic Committee (JEC). Or is it the $3.5-trillion figure cited by
Ron Paul, whose concern about the true cost of this war for ordinary
Americans shames the leading Democrats, who prattle on about needed
domestic programs that will never find funding because of future
war-related government debt?
Given that the overall defense budget is now double what it was when
President Bush's father presided over the end of the cold war--even
though we don't have a militarily sophisticated enemy in sight--you
have to wonder how this president has managed to exceed cold war
spending levels. What has he gotten for the trillions wasted? Nothing,
when it comes to capturing Osama bin Laden, bringing democracy to Iraq
or preventing oil prices from tripling and enriching the ayatollahs of
Iran while messing up the American economy.
That money could have paid for a lot of things we could have used here
at home. As Rep. Paul points out, for what the Iraq war costs, we
could present each family of four a check for $46,000--which exceeds
the $43,000 median household income in his Texas district. He asks:
"What about the impact of those costs on education, the very thing
that so often helps to increase earnings? Forty-six thousand dollars
would cover 90 percent of the tuition costs to attend a four-year
public university in Texas for both children in that family of four.
But, instead of sending kids to college, too often we're sending them
to Iraq, where the best news in a long time is they [the insurgents]
aren't killing our men and women as fast as they were last month."
How damning that it takes a libertarian Republican to remind the
leading Democratic candidates of the opportunity costs of a war that
most Democrats in Congress voted for. But they don't need to take
Paul's word for it; last week, the majority staff of the Joint
Economic Committee in Congress came up with similarly startling
estimates of the long-term costs of this war.
The White House has quibbled over the methods employed by the JEC to
calculate the real costs of our two foreign wars, because the
Democrats in the majority dared to include in their calculations the
long-term care of wounded soldiers and the interest to be paid on the
debt financing the war. Of course, you need to account for the
additional debt run up by an administration that, instead of raising
taxes to pay for the war, cut them by relying on the Chinese
Communists and other foreigners who hold so much of our debt. As
concluded by the JEC report, compiled by the committee's professional
staff, "almost 10 percent of total federal government interest
payments in 2008 will consist of payments on the Iraq debt accumulated
so far."
However, even if you take the hard figure of the $804 billion the
administration demanded for the past five years, and ignore all the
long-run costs like debt service, we're still not talking chump change
here. For example, Bush has asked for an additional $196 billion in
supplementary aid for his wars, which is $60 billion more than the
total spent by the US government last year on all of America's
infrastructure repairs, the National Institutes of Health, college
tuition assistance and the SCHIP program to provide health insurance
to kids who don't have any.
On this matter of covering the uninsured, it should be pointed out to
those who say we (alone among industrialized nations) can't afford it
that we could have covered all 47 million uninsured Americans over the
past six years for what the Iraq war cost us. How come that
choice--war in Iraq or full medical coverage for all Americans--was
never presented to the American people by the Democrats and
Republicans who voted for this war and continue to finance it?
Those now celebrating the supposed success of the surge might note
that, as the JEC report points out, "[m]aintaining post-surge troop
levels in Iraq over the next ten years would result in costs of $4.5
trillion." Until the leading Democratic candidate faces up to the
irreparable harm that will be done to needed social programs over the
next decades by the red-ink spending she supported, I will be cheering
for the libertarian Republican. At least he won't throw more money
down some foreign rat hole.
*********************************************************************
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