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| Focus on freedom: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has long been studying economics and world markets. karin cooper/face the nation |
Ron Paul: an absolute faith in free markets and less government
The 10-term congressman from Texas has been a strict constitutionalist since he came into public life some 30 years ago.
from the January 2, 2008 edition
Page 4 of 4
He recalls witnessing an illegal abortion in his first year out of medical school that made an impression, too. "Once I became more firmly entrenched with libertarian beliefs, I realized that another life was involved, I saw this as a principle of nonaggression, which libertarians adhere to. The baby has a choice, too."
For some Washington-based libertarians, Paul's success on the campaign trail is puzzling. "Because Ron Paul is personally a very traditional man, a small town guy, his libertarianism is embedded in a lot more traditionalism that you find in many libertarians," who bristle at his stance on abortion, for example, says Brian Doherty, senior editor at Reason Magazine, the leading libertarian political and cultural journal. "But many financial analysts, who are disproportionate fans of the Paul campaign, say that in their world, the stuff that might strike a normal American as kooky, such as restoring the gold standard, does not strike them as kooky, especially given how the dollar's value is plummeting. There isn't a single other candidate out there talking about their world in an interesting way – or at all," he adds.
A surge of grass-roots support
When Paul first ran for president as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988, he won 0.54 percent of the vote. In his second presidential bid, he's on track to do better.
While Paul still polls only in single digits nationally and in early primary states, his supporters have raised more than $19 million since October, including a record $6.2 million on one day, Dec. 16. This unofficial, grass-roots campaign is out-organizing all other campaigns over the Internet and recently launched a Ron Paul blimp.
"I'm not surprised that the views are popular, but I'm surprised to the extent that people have rallied and gotten spontaneously involved and done so much in fundraising and campaign events," Paul said in a Monitor interview.
Paul says his campaign is still working out what to do with the last quarter's surge of campaign contributions. "It's a real job figuring out what to do with it," he says. "We're going to budget it out. It just means it's a lot easier planning for super-Tuesday [on Feb. 5], when we have money in the bank."
In Iowa, the campaign has used new funds to quickly ramp up a ground operation. In New Hampshire, it launched new television and radio ads.
Some experts say polls may be undercounting Paul's support, because so many of his backers haven't voted in the past and use cellphones rather than the landlines, which pollsters use. That's why Paul "is likely to do better on election day than polls say he might," said Fergus Cullen, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party in an interview for C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" on Sunday.
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Heading into Election 2008, the Monitor profiles the candidates through the lens of their core convictions – through their values, worldviews, and, when applicable, religious faiths. |
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