Posted on 01/11/2007 6:06:07 PM PST by Rodney King
Texas Congressman Ron Paul files for GOP presidential bid
HOUSTON -- Ron Paul, the iconoclastic nine-term congressman from southeast Texas, took the first step Thursday toward launching a second presidential bid in 2008, this time as a Republican.
Paul filed incorporation papers in Texas on Thursday to create a presidential exploratory committee that allows him and his supporters to collect money on behalf of his bid. This will be Paul's second try for the White House; he was the Libertarian nominee for president in 1988.
Kent Snyder, the chairman of Paul's exploratory committee and a former staffer on Paul's Libertarian campaign, said the congressman knows he's a long shot.
"There's no question that it's an uphill battle, and that Dr. Paul is an underdog," Snyder said. "But we think it's well worth doing and we'll let the voters decide."
Paul, of Lake Jackson, acknowledges that the national GOP has never fully embraced him despite his nine terms in office under its banner. He gets little money from the GOP's large traditional donors, but benefits from individual conservative and Libertarian donors outside Texas. He bills himself as "The Taxpayers' Best Friend," and is routinely ranked either first or second in the House of Representatives by the National Taxpayers Union, a national group advocating low taxes and limited government.
He describes himself as a lifelong Libertarian running as a Republican.
Paul was not available for comment Thursday, Snyder said.
But he said the campaign will test its ability to attract financial and political support before deciding whether to launch a full-fledged campaign. Snyder said Paul is not running just to make a point or to try to ensure that his issues are addressed, but to win.
Paul is expected to formally announce his bid in the next week or two, Snyder said.
Snyder said Paul and his supporters are not intimidated by the presence of nationally known and better-financed candidates such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona or former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.
"This is going to be a grassroots American campaign," he said. "For us, it's either going to happen at the grassroots level or it's not."
Paul limits his view of the role of the federal government to those duties laid out in the U.S. Constitution. As a result, he sometimes casts votes that appear at odds with his constituents and other Republicans. He was the only Republican congressman to vote against Department of Defense appropriations for fiscal year 2007.
The vote against the defense appropriations bill, he said, was because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, which he said was "not necessary for our actual security."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not b
Do they allow visitors where you live?
B/S. Which battle did we lose in Viet Nam?
Nice seeing you around Jar Head.
Three words: No bid contracts.
Militarily we kicked ass every time we came up against the VC or the NVA... but McNamara claimed that he knew almost from the beginning that we would NOT win the war. Back not very long after Johnson started ramping up the troop levels. I'll find a link and post it later.
When I see you surrounded by idiots I have to jump in. It's a weakness. Hell, Jim had to join.
Yes, fine. But you went further than that and suggested that why the war went on was not politics, but a crass desire to enrich companies that benefitted from the war. Where is your proof of that?
Amazing how those who would surrender to the enemy brings out the ire in folks. I expect that from the left...but I've never seen cutting and running as a conservative value much less an American one.
MacNamera's a born liar. Was he lying then or is he lying now.
As one who has been involved with doing work for the government and on occassion under some of the various forms that are refered to as "no bid" I often wish I had ten hours to explain just what that often thankless experience is like.
Because, of course, during a war it is productive to engage in 9 month long contracting processes?
Much like politicians standing up and announcing to the world that we should surrender to our enemies.
We won every battle we fought in Vietnam. Lost the war in the States.
"We" figuratively by the way - my ten years in the Guard started many years later.
The point is, the person I was posting to would apparently actually prefer that a socialist be president.. my question was trying to draw that out. There is a difference between Republicans arguing amoungst themselves, and Rino's who leave the party when they lose, like the Rino's did to Ollie North in Virginia, and Brett Schundler in New Jersey.
Hey, JimRob, your guess is as good as mine there. Here's a link for you, though. The same McNamara who brought us the M-16 disaster... http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Robert+McNamara&gwp=13
The way things are going now: open borders, manufacturing in decline, massive national and personal debt...we may have victorious soldiers come home from foreign battles and find that the war has been lost right here.
Are you saying that you had to sift through mountains of paperwork (and that no-bid hardly meant, no work)? I can sympathise. I doubt anything 'government' gets done effeciently- even the 'easy' stuff.
Spouting the union crap again....
I have relatives and close friends in Texas who did vote for Kinky, and will vote for Ron Paul, because they are tired of the squirrels.
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