2 of 12

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 3

gang, denouncing the IRS while giving the Gestapo more of your money, or figuring out some other federal tax for them to squeeze out of you. I also want to abolish the Federal Reserve The value of our dollar and the level of our interest rates are not supposed to be manipulated by a few members of the power elite meeting in secret in a marble palace. Without the Federal Reserve, our money could not be inflated at the behest of big government or big banks. Your income and savings would not lose their value." Ron Paul, 2002

Ron Paul's detractors criticize him and his base for currently only holding a small portion of the vote, between 2-5%. But this does not take into account political history which shows that candidates vying for their parties nominations such as Clinton, Carter, and Dukakis all polled at as low as 1% prior to winning their parties nominations. In 2003 Joe Lieberman was the front runner for the Democratic nomination, only to later lose it all together to John Kerry. It is also quite remarkable that on November 5th, 2007 the Ron Paul campaign broke all GOP records, raising over 4.3 million dollars in one day. No doubt should be had that it is still far too early to count votes and settle on final candidates.

Other disparaging sentiments are levied against Paul supporters for their presumed youth. Internet surveys on multiple websites such as Youtube.com and Digg.com count Ron Paul as the Internet President. Much of his support in local communities as well as on the internet has been organized by grass roots activists. The 28 year old James Sugra of Huntington Beach Ca. and 37 year old Trevor Lyman of Miami Beach both independently coordinated their efforts to promote November 5th as the day to show financial support for Ron Paul. This seems to be the case in the real world as well. Countless hand-fashioned Ron Paul signs can be seen canvassing the streets of cities from Pensacola, Florida to Sherman Oaks, Ca. There is certainly a lack of hand-made signs showing support for any other candidates at this stage of the game; well before many professional signs have been seen supporting anyone.

All of this seems to point toward the strength behind the Ron Paul campaign. The youthful and the ever growing do-it-yourself grassroots internet cultures seem to have adopted Paul as their candidate of choice, as have the old time hard line conservatives, social liberals and constitutionalists. Most everyone leery of globalism and runaway government has to give Ron Paul a respectful nod, but will it be enough to overcome the money machine of fast food politics characterizing the first decade of the twenty-first century? Will the increasing youth vote and the independent media savvy internet culture in conjunction with the old line republicans, the Libertarian and third-parties be enough to swing Dr. Paul his party's nomination? After securing the nomination will Ron Paul's no-nonsense Libertarian constitutional literalism seem pertinent enough to draw support away from the star-struck audience of the hopeful Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama? Only time will tell, but we can rest assured that Ron Paul still has quite a few surprises left for us in 2008.

Learn more about this author, Jay Moody.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3

Add your voice

Know something about Ron Paul - A viable candidate for American President in November 2008?
We want to hear your view. Write now!