Opinion: Ron Paul Ron Paul Ron Paul
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The Republican candidate for president with two first names is getting another minute or two of fame.
Ron Paul, an obscure 10-term congressman from Texas who once ran for president as a Libertarian, is the subject of an Associated Press feature story today that is sure to send his legions of online fans into paroxysms of e-mailing and blogging. This follows a recent Times feature by Tomas Alex Tizon on Paul and Democrat Mike Gravel, the cantankerous Democrat presidential candidate.
The 71-year-old Paul remains, of course, a very long-shot to actually win the party’s nomination. His poll ratings have hovered around 2%. But he has raised more than $3 million in the last three months, respectable for an underdog, harbored his resources carefully and harnessed his fervent fans through his debate appearances and campaign website to make way more than 2% of the campaign noise.
Paul stands out from his GOP peers in a number of ways. He has long opposed the Iraq war for one. He opposes the death penalty, votes against military appropriations, supports a return to the gold standard and favors radical downsizing of the federal government including dissolution of the Energy and Education Departments as well as the Internal Revenue Service.
A one-time high school track star (he once ran the 100-yard dash in 9.7 seconds), the avuncular Paul moves...
about the country largely unnoticed, except for debate appearances on television. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Paul has just started buying radio ads, will next get a chance to hear his contrarian views along with the rest of the country on a Republican candidate forum Sunday morning on ABC-TV’s ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos.’ To find out what time the debate will air in your location, go here.
It probably won’t come up in the debate, but Paul once considered a career as a Lutheran minister. Instead, he went into the Air Force, became a gynecologist and obstetrician, delivering some 4,000 babies over the years and having five children and 17 grandchildren of his own. He is known on Capitol Hill as ‘Dr. No’ for his opposition to so many things.
But he told The Times’ Tizon he prefers to spell it ‘Dr. Know.’
--Andrew Malcolm