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
You're the RINO pal...
I have a fillng that is Mitt's position as well...
Interesting. In nopardons-land "fact=canard".
Haha. I take it you're a mean drunk?
Working? Good God.
I think you are pretty sensible most of the time, so I'm really baffled that you think this. Really, how have the past three years not convinced you that Bush is flat wrong on most of his foreign policy? I mean the neoconservatives made several predictions about what would happen in Iraq and they have been proven wrong about pretty much everything. What would it take to convince you that going to war with Iraq was the wrong thing to do?
Indeed. Drunken freeping is one of those things that seems like a fun idea at the time, but then when you go and review your posts the next day, you're ashamed at how dumb you were.
It's not a "fact"; but, it IS an old canard! :-)
It very well may be; but I don't know and I don't talk about that which I do not know. :-)
A generation from now when Iraq is run by a strongman not chosen by a US administration, or worse becomes a theocracy, you won't be able to find one 'conservative' who advocated military actions against Iraq.
Rep. Paul is facing an uphill battle, and not from the opposing party. He shakes up the house of cards Republicans have built over the years. Give him a national stage and, contrary to 'conservative' belief, there could be a strong grassroots push for him. He may have a R by his name but he is no Republican. And that's a good thing. Republicans have never been all that conservative. I'll be waiting patiently to see how and where his campaign begins in NC. Wherever it is, I will volunteer. He's got my vote hands down
Hi, Nopardons. I hope you received my apology in post #500. I really do feel bad about talking that way to a woman. I disagree with you a lot, but I've always respected your feisty style of presenting your opinion with a no-nonsense approach.
In the future, it would behoove you to NOT post when you have been drinking. That will save you from making posts that you later regret and have to apologize for. :-)
Yes, we have had disagreements, but you have never previously been uncouth and nasty. It was an unpleasant surprise, when you were.
LOL...I am blunt and take no quarter; that's for sure. Debates should be a give and take; however, facts matter and that's how debates and discussions should be made. Let's agree to keep to just the facts, in the future. :-)
Fair enough! Have a great weekend.
I do not support Ron Paul for President. He's anti-America, pro-terrorists and an isolationist. He will lose support from pro-America conservatives when his liberalism and isolationism are exposed during the primaries. I won't vote for him if he wins the GOP nomination. I'll write in Mark Levin instead because I would rather have Levin in the White House than Paul. Levin has the guts to fight the terrorists. Paul is a guttless coward.
REASON: Governor Reagan, you have been quoted in the press as saying that you’re doing a lot of speaking now on behalf of the philosophy of conservatism and libertarianism. Is there a difference between the two?I doubt it was worth my time to post this, since I'm sure you've seen this before, but Reagan said it. It's a fact.REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.
I don't know about that, given the energy some conservatives put into trying to rehabilitate the reputation of Vietnam.
I hope that YOU have a great weekend too.
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