Posted on 07/23/2007 7:58:41 AM PDT by George W. Bush
Paul faithful flock to Spartanburg appearance
A little-known Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for president visited Spartanburg on Saturday and seemed to arrive with all the makings of rock-star candidate for his party despite polling low, little name recognition and a relatively small campaign staff.
Supporters call it the Ron Paul Revolution. You mightve seen it on signs or T-shirts. Or MySpace.
Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Event Center first, when he entered the room, a second one when a re-entered after doing a quick television interview and a third when he was formally introduced.
Thunderous applause also followed when he decried the Patriot Act (ovation No. 4), when he said America should never go to war without a declaration from Congress or because of a United Nations resolution (ovation Nos. 8 and 9), and when he attacked President Bushs foreign policy and handling of the war in Iraq (ovation Nos. 11, 12 and 13).
No nation building. No policing of the world. Peace is popular, Paul said. The sooner we get out of Iraq, the fewer Americans will die. And I say, its time to come home.
About 400 people half from out of state were shoehorned into Summit Pointe for a barbecue luncheon that doubled as a fundraiser for the Spartanburg County Republican Party. The local GOP, after expenses, made an estimated $5,000 on the event.
Paul was invited to speak to the local party faithful (they numbered about 80 in the crowd) after county chairman Rick Beltram took offense at Pauls explanation of the 9/11 attacks as blowback from Americas past intervention in the affairs of other countries during a GOP debate. That led to a widely distributed online tit-for-tat between Beltram and Paul supporters, and Beltram eventually invited Paul here to explain himself.
Blowback, in and of itself, was not mentioned Saturday, though Paul often alluded to it, going as far back as World War I, which (President) Woodrow Wilson got us into unnecessarily, and drew the lines in the Middle East that were suffering for today.
Beltram said he agreed with Paul on most issues except foreign policy, and that he believes the Texan converted some Upstaters to his revolution with Saturdays speech.
I left feeling like a hero, Beltram said. I got more positive comments after that event than all the other presidential events combined.
The question isn't so much why Ron Paul is doing so well with this message as it is why the rest of the GOP so steadfastly refuses to offer it boldly, just as Ron Paul is doing with such positive results.
Maybe the rest of the GOP should stop celebrating the genius of the Chappaquiddick Killer and return to the winning message of Ronald Reagan. As Rush says, it works every time we try it.
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Run Fred, Run.
I’d rather not have a loony for a president, even if half the things he says actually make sense.
My only real problem with Paul is his apparent disregard for the words of those saying they want to kill us. Their history has proven that they keep their promises to slaughter.
100 years ago they couldn’t do it unless we were there. Today they’re gaining the means to kill us at a distance and ignoring them only means our children will die at their hands.
Perhaps Rick is starting to realize there are far more non-interventionists in the Republican party than the RNC would have the media and the general public believe. Thank you Mr. Beltram for giving Rep. Paul a fair shake.
Ron Paul’s big problem is that his messages simply can’t be understood by human beings with IQ’s less than 100. And in these times, that’s about 80% of the electorate. ;)
Who is Don Paul?
Anyone who doesn’t recognize the we are at war with radical islamic fascist in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places known and unknown is a non starter in my opinion.
Dictators and mullahs in the middle east use proxies to attack the USA and western countries. Anyone who can’t understand that will never get my vote.
WOO’OOO DREEEAAAMWEAVAH!!!
Haha...bunch of dummies.
80 people?
Personally I fail to see how the world will have improved after Iran nukes Israel and intimidates the rest of the mideast into allowing Iran to control the flow of oil.
I’ve got a bit of an isolationist bent myself but simply looking the other way is insanity.
So Ronald Reagan was against any US troops in Saudi Arabia especially including any jews, so as not to rile them up and create terrorists?? News to me. So if Ronald Reagan could speak to us today he would endorse Ron Paul, eh?? Including the part about let’s not be over there in their countries and/or do anything that offends them or riles them up to terrorize us. I don’t think Ronald Reagan would. Why don’t you ask his son, Michael? Got the guts? Tell you what. I don’t think you belong here. That’s my view.
As always there should be a paulette buffon alert on these threads
BUT PUHLEEEEEEZE refrain from imagining even privately much less in public that paleoPaulie is anything vaguely resembling Ronaldus Maximus. Our enemies generally refrained from attacking America while Ronaldus Maximus was president because he gave them every reason to believe that he and we were to be feared by our enemies. PaleoPaulie is part and parcel of our enemies. And, no, it does not matter that paleoPaulie endorsed Reagan in 1976 because as Reagan said of Birchers in California in the 1960s: "They may endorse me but I don't endorse them." Reagan is entitled to the fine reputation he earned and the continuing dishonesty of suggesting that paleoPaulie's foreign policy of "flee in terror" has anything to do with the finest president of our lifetimes is inexcusable.
Before El Ron Paul ran for president, he forgot that he needed to have surgery implanting steel rods in his wrists, an actual backbone and, of course, a whole brain transplant. For starters......
What will you do with your spare time after we hang the Wonder Wimp by his thumbs in next years' primaries? Has he broken above 1% in any poll yet that is done by a reputable pollster polling random voters? Remember: not those on line polls or their equivalents where you and his little platoon can join with leftist moonbats, moveon.org members, McGovern lovers, Howard Yeeeeargh Dean's family members, et al., each voting a couple of hundred times to make the wimp look almost vaguely memorable.
You are filling that role quite nicely, I should think. Are you getting tired of it or something?
Ronald Reagan was pretty openly hostile to Ron Paul, especially after Paul and the other cowards and/or anti-semites got together with the Democrats to betray Israel and force our retreat from Lebanon.
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