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
Rudy Giuliani: Noo Yawker = UNAmerican.
John McCain: Loose cannon.
Ron would have my vote over those two morons, but common sense Constitutionalism seems in short supply among the SHEEPLE these days.
RK: Will Ron Paul promise to leave his Congressional seat and to take the other foreign policy paleoimbecile Weepy Walter Jones of North Carolina with him? I would never vote for a surrender monkey like either one but it sure would be nice to see their Congressional seats held by Americans with an American foreign policy designed to make Islamocider out of Islamofascisti, swamping Tehran, Mecca, Medina and the Dome of the Rock in an ocean of pig blood.
Oh goody! So Paul gets to run back and forth between parties, depending on when it is conveeeeeenient for him? Great. So he'll force all the other candidates to spend money running against him and when he doesn't win the nomination, he'll pick up his marbles and run as third party spoiler. Swell!
LOL! You gotta love that! He talks about "RINOs," which Paul literally is, and predicts he'll be asked to "surrender", which is precisely what Paul advocates in the WOT.
WTF are you talking about? Paul has been a GOP congressmen for many years. What do you mean by run back and forth between the parties? Also, since this article was posted he has specifically stated that he was running in the GOP and will support the GOP candidate whoever that is.
Ron Paul: American - bump
He ran as a Liberalitarin candidate for president before.
And that qualifies as "back and forth"? Reagan was a democrat before he was a Repbulican, did one switch make him "back and forth"?
Last I checked, the Bush Bots wanted the Libertarians to fight within the GOP rather than be spoilers.
I haven't considered the liberalitarians to be a branch of the GOP since 9/11. It became very clear to me, then, that the liberalitarians had more in common, on the important issues, with liberals than with conservatives. I'm tired of the GOP trying to court them. They can go as far as I'm concerned.
Fair enough. After the last election lots of Bush Bots here on FR were whining that the libertarians cost the GOP the senate, and that libertarians naturally belong in the GOP. That being the case, it would be hypocrtical to the argue that Paul shouldn't run in the GOP. However, your position is logical and consistent, and we have no problem then.
Yep -- I remember those threads and I jumped in and said we can't assume, based on the liberalitarian positions on the War on Terror and immigration, that those votes would have gone for the GOP. People have to stop assuming that the "L" vote is a faction of the GOP. Now, I do blame the so-called conservatives who stayed home to "teach the GOP a lesson", but I consider the liberalitarians to be distinct from them.
I support winning in Iraq, i.e., The War on Terror, and I don't support any RINOs for GOP nomination.
You're welcome.
Me neither.
Although he has other priorities now, I would not be surprised if President Reagan still believes that. Reagan was right.
But if we prematurely signal to our politicians that we will "settle for less," we decrease the likelihood of getting the ban.
I agree with that.
I didn't know that Ron Paul didn't support our prez on the WOT. Interesting aspect!
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