Ron Paul Nation: the other convention in town

Paul finished second, ahead of McCain, in Montana and Nevada, and set a record for the largest online fundraising haul in a single day. But he won no primaries, seldom escaped single-digit poll numbers, and quit the race in June. All the same, his attacks on the Iraq war and US foreign policy stirred a ragtag army of supporters – from vegans to back-to-the-landers to gun-rights zealots – alienated by a Republican Party they see as adrift from its small-government moorings.

A ten-term congressman who once ran as the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, Paul has said he won’t vote for either McCain or Democratic nominee Barack Obama. But, he says, he won’t tell his flock how to vote.

The week’s mission, according to a Paul website, is a “clear call to the Republican Party to return to its roots of limited government, personal responsibility, and protection of our natural rights.”

Jesse Benton, a Paul spokesman, said that a good share of Paul’s army could be McCain’s if only the Arizona senator changed his mind on the Iraq war and America’s role in the world. “There are millions of activists out there at a time when the base of the GOP is shrinking, and they’d be excited and eager to get involved with the Republican Party if it stayed true to its traditions.”

Students of the political scene call a McCain-Paul rapprochement unlikely. Republican leaders rebuffed Paul’s request to speak at the GOP convention, largely because of his refusal to endorse McCain, aides to Paul said. (Spokesmen for McCain did not return phone calls.)

A New York Times poll of convention delegates released Sunday showed a party solidly – if not always enthusiastically – behind McCain. Of those surveyed, 95 percent said they would back McCain on the convention floor, with 1 percent each for Paul, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Mr. Jillson suspects many Paul supporters will back McCain in November, even if they have to hold their nose.

But with some 15,000 reporters in the Twin Cities and official events scaled back because of hurricane Gustav, Paul supporters have a rare opportunity to steal some of the spotlight.

At the concert on a soccer field in Blaine Monday night, bikers in leather vests mingled with boys in tie-dye shirts, men in bowties, and women pushing strollers. T-shirts bore messages ranging from “Politicians Love Disarmed Peasants” and “Gold is Money” to “End the Fed” and “Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies.”

“Republicans keep talking about the small government thing, and they don’t do it,” Richard Matthews, a Republican running for a Maryland Congressional seat, said beside the bleachers here. “Democrats keep talking about getting us out of the war, and they don’t do it.”

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