I was responding to an e-mail discussion within my family about Ron Paul and figured most of what I wrote would make a good post about why I support him. So ...
For any of us looking at any candidate, there will always be issues with which we disagree. The difference between Ron Paul and most others is that he doesn't hide the positions he thinks others might not like. He is the real Straight Talker.
And his views actually have an intellectual root to them. Some Republicans used to believe in states' rights. Thus, the Republican position on abortion was that the federal government should stay out of it, and let the states have their own rules. Then the Republicans got power, and they tried, and keep trying, to make federal prohibitions on abortion. I'm pretty sure Paul stands by the old position (I saw him talking about this) and votes against federal regulation of abortion - even though he personally believes abortion should be illegal.
Of course, I disagree with him myself on this issue, and believe abortion is, and should remain, a part of the constitutional right to privacy. Interesting - if you check out his interest group ratings on vote-smart.org: http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=BC031929
He gets widely varying ratings from NARAL and the right-to-life groups. In 2005 he actually got a 75/100 rating from NARAL, but in 2003 he got a zero.
The big thing about Ron Paul is his belief in a small federal government. For more than a decade he has been consistent on this issue, basically the lone dissenter from the Republicrat/Demolican expansion of the federal government into everything it can get its hands on.
This view - that federal government should be much smaller than it is today - is at the core of Ron Paul and his campaign. He would describe it as returning the federal government to the role it is limited to by the Constitution. And this core view is the thing about Paul that Steve [my brother] and I really believe in. We may disagree with him on an issue here, or an issue there, but this fundamental issue is something that really motivates us.
One issue that might motivate you, however, is that Ron Paul opposed the Iraq war from the beginning - unlike John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, etc. Consider, for example, his recent speech (it's short): http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2007/cr041707.htm
And you can see his original opposition statement in December of 2001:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul7.html
and his further statement in 2002:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul58.html
Ron Paul has been the most consistent, and the most outspoken, opponent of this war. Compare him to any other presidential candidate, and just about any politician at a national level, and you will find him far and away the closest to the position we all share on Iraq. We opposed it from the beginning, and have consistently opposed it throughout. Ron Paul is the only one who has consistently agreed with us on this. He also opposed the Patriot Act from the beginning, by the way. And on my pet issue, he has also consistently opposed the drug war- for example: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul4.html
My political prediction (okay, it's just a guess), is that Paul will focus on one or two early primary states, and probably just NH. He will not get much press coverage but he'll get his message out. McCain, Giuliani and Romney will split the mainstream Republican vote (the people who vote Republican because they're Republican and don't even remember why they're Republican), and Paul will win the rest. He might just win NH, or maybe come in #2, and then he'll finally get national media attention. If he is able to get national media attention on his opposition to the Iraq war, and if - a big IF - he can stay focused on that issue and not allow himself to digress and talk about all the 100 ways he's different from everyone else, he will become the leading candidate among anti-war Republicans. That would make him a contender.
Labels: abortion, drug war, iraq, presidential campaign, Republican, ron paul
