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Ron Paul pitch picking up power
By Joe @ Search Infowars | January 3, 2008
His grassroots GOP effort has used Web to gain strength, and he’s poised to outrun Rudy in Iowa
BY LETTA TAYLER
January 2, 2008
NewsDay
ALTOONA, Iowa - A wind chill factor of minus 10 didn’t deter student volunteer Brian Dunn from canvassing this Des Moines suburb yesterday on behalf of his hero, libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul. Nor did the rejections from voters.
“Not interested,” one elderly man snapped before shutting the door in Dunn’s earnest, frozen face.
“Voting for Hillary,” said a young woman.
Finally, Dunn found an audience.
“I really like the way Ron Paul wants to get the government off our backs,” said state employee Barbara Murray as she accepted a Paul campaign brochure. “Anytime the government gets to doing anything, they mess it up.”
To many mainstream voters, Paul is an engaging but somewhat loopy fringe candidate; polls give him just 4 percent of the GOP vote nationwide. But in just two months, the retired obstetrician and 10-term Texas congressman’s support among Republicans in tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses has more than doubled to 9 percent, according to a new Des Moines Register poll. That is nearly twice the 5 percent for Rudy Giuliani. A new CNN poll has Paul and Giuliani tied here at 8 percent.
Paul, 72, isn’t siphoning votes from the more liberal Giuliani with his calls to abolish all taxes and end all foreign military intervention, and his rant that “loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show [and] big government in bed with big business” are creating “a soft form of fascism.” But his ascent means the ex-mayor could finish fifth or sixth here - hardly ideal as Giuliani struggles to remain the front-runner nationwide.
“No one expects a lot from Giuliani in Iowa,” said University of Iowa political scientist David Redlawsk, noting that the New Yorker merely hopes to make a respectable showing here as he focuses on big-delegate primaries elsewhere. “But to have him lose to Ron Paul, who is essentially considered on the fringe, would be an unquestionable embarrassment.”
Placing behind Paul could be doubly bruising because Giuliani has used the Texan as a whipping post on national security, the cornerstone of his campaign. During a debate in South Carolina in May, Giuliani called Paul “absurd” for suggesting a U.S. history of intervention in the Middle East had prompted the 9/11 attack.
Paul’s Iowa campaign manager, Drew Ivers, denied any animosity. But he laughed as he suggested Giuliani was sliding in Iowa because “the people have seen through his ruse of pretending to be a strong leader.”
Paul hasn’t spent much time in Iowa, either. But his grassroots campaign has taken off via the Internet, where he raised $10 million in two days in November and December. His campaign yesterday said his total earnings this quarter were $19.5 million, possibly the largest haul among GOP candidates.
Carrying his torch are thousands of zealous volunteers under age 35. They include 250 students who paid their way here to canvass and protest at rivals’ events, chanting: “Ron Paul, revolution!”
As they sported T-shirts reading “Revolution” with the letters e-v-o-l reversed to spell “love,” and expressed outrage over the Iraq war, many so-called Paulites resembled Vietnam War protesters of the 1960s as they traveled to canvassing sites yesterday in a battered, red-white-and-blue bus.
But most similarities stopped there, as evidenced by the campaign slogans on the bus, dubbed the Constitution Coach because of Paul’s belief that the Founding Fathers wanted less federal intervention. “Pro-Life.” “Pro-Gun Ownership.” “Pro-Homeschool,” the slogans read. “No Patriot Act.” “No NAFTA.” “Stop the IRS.”
“The United States is crumbling like the Roman Empire … with plummeting currency and mounting debt,” said Dunn, 22, who spent $500 on airfare from Oregon to work for Paul. “Dr. Paul will change all that.”
Dunn, who is bunking in a Boy Scout dorm, shrugged over the prospect that Paul might lose the election. “It may take time,” he said. “After all, the Constitution wasn’t adopted until 10 years after the American Revolution.”
Caucus countdown
Obama widens lead: Huckabee stays ahead in Des Mones Register poll.
DEMOCRATS
Barack Obama 32%
Hillary Clinton 25%
John Edwards 24%
Bill Richardson 6%
REPUBLICANS
Mike Huckabee 32%
Mitt Romeny 26%
John McCain 13%
Fred Thompson 9%
Ron Paul 9%
Rudy Giuliani 5%
NOTE: Telephone poll of 800 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 800 likely Republican caucus participants was conducted Dec. 27-30. Margin of error +/- 3.5%
SOURCE: The Des Moines Register
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Topics: News |
7 Responses to “Ron Paul pitch picking up power”
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January 3rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
Ron Paul is the only logical choice of those that enjoy liberty. Perhaps that is the real problem. To few really understand what the American Republic and the United States Constitution are really about. Most don’t know what the Constitution says about the ruler ship of the Republic, and the rights the individual under Constitutional Law. Therefore, how can an ignorant populace elect effective leaders of the Constitution? They can’t. It should be required by law that no one votes until they have read and understand the United States Constitution. And as a citizen of the United States we should all be willing to uphold and defend it. Otherwise denounce your citizenship and get the hell out of the United States. And if you haven’t read and understood the Constitution and still intend to vote, let your vote for Ron Paul indicate your intelligence to make the right choice with out having all the facts.
:http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
January 4th, 2008 at 5:03 am
I WISH MEN LIKE DR.PAUL AND ALLAN KEYS WOULD GET HOOKED UP AS RUNNING MATES,MEN WHO HONOR GOD, COUNTRY, LIFE AND WE THE PEOPLE.MEN WHO NOT ONLY HAVE READ THE CONSTITUTION BUT UNDERSTAND THE INTENT OF OUR FOREFATHERS.ALSO MEN LIKE DAVID BARTON OF WALL BUILDERS WHO WOULD BE ANOUTHER EXCELLENT CABINET CHOICE. I BELIEVE IF MEN LIKE THESE COULD RISE TO A PLACE OF AUTHORITY IN OUR LAND WE THE PEOPLE WOULD BE OUR CRY ONCE AGAIN..GOD BLESS AND MY DEEPEST CONCERN FOR THESE ELECTIONS…JOHNNY..
January 4th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Johnny, you make an interesting point. Alan Keyes is a Reagan statesman and Constitutional scholar.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:38 am
WHAT REALLY HAS ME BURNING INSIDE IS THAT AS A BLACK PERSON AUTOMATICALLY IM SUPPOSED TO VOTE FOR OBAMA OR HILLARY WHEN IN REALITY NONE OF THESE PEOPLE STAND FOR ANYTHING I BELIEVE IN,ITS STRANGE IN A WAY WHERE AS OBAMA TALKS ABOUT BINDING THE TIES BETWEEN RACES AND THEN HE’S TELLING ME VOTE FOR ME CAUSE IM BLACK TO ME THATS WHAT AS A HUMAN BEING IM TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM THIS STEREO -TYPE JUST BECAUSE IM BLACK AND YOU’RE BLACK YOU HAVE MY VOTE. I STARTED LISTENING A LITTLE MORE TO WHAT RON PAUL HAD TO SAY AND MAN I’LL TELL YOU THIS GUY IS RIGHT ON POINT AND HE STRAIGHT FORWARD HE ALWAYS HAS THE FACTS AND YOU CAN DO YOUR RESEARCH AND CONFIRM WHAT HE JUST SAID THE GOVERNMENT HAS AND WILL CONTINUE TO LIE TO US UNLESS WE GET SOMEONE IN OFFICE THAT CARE ABOUT THE WELL BEING OF THE TAX PAYER NEXT DOOR YOU CAN LOOK AROUND AND SENSE THAT SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT ITS LIKE PEOPLE SLEEPING IN A BURNING HOUSE YOU SMELL THE SMOKE BUT THEN YOU JUST GO BACK TO BED IT SICKENS ME.I HOPE THAT RON PAUL ATTRACTS VOTERS OF ALL RACES BUT THE MEDIA SEEMS TO BE SELLING THIS STORY THAT AFRICAN AMERICAN ALL OF US ARE VOTING FOR OBAMA OR HIL-LIE-ERY CLINTON NOT!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS ANOTHER PROBLEM MAIN STREAM MEDIA OH YEAH IM 25 AND IM A HIP-HOP HEAD I LOVE RAP I DIG ROCK LOVE MARILYN MANSON AND IM DIGGIN RON PAUL ITS ALL ABOUT STEPPING OUTSIDE THAT NORMAL COMFORT ZONE AND EMBRACING THINGS OPENING YOUR EYES AND UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH WHATS REALLY GOING ON
January 5th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Ive also noticed how Mainstream Media is trying to group people into voting like sheep.
Myspace wants everyone 18-25 to vote for Obama and they provide endless links to Videos of Obama girl, trying to make it cool to vote for the guy, and the Majority of morons on Myspace will do that, vote for someone because a video is telling them to.
I could go on but I dont want to, the thought of it all just sickens me worse than a bad hangover.
If only Ron Paul had some celebrity support though, I dont think it would be too much of a stretch to gain support from say George Carlin, or just anyone really who has a shred of credibility.
Maybe we need a few idiots on this crusade, because we need Ron Paul to win this election.
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