The Militant - January 7, 2008 -- Rightist Ron Paul draws support in ’08 campaign

Vol. 72/No. 1 January 7, 2008

Rightist Ron Paul draws support in ’08 campaign
(feature article)

BY SAM MANUEL
WASHINGTON—Ronald Paul, a previously little-known Republican congressman from Texas, has been drawing attention in the presidential race. CNN and the New York Times polls show Paul fourth behind Republican candidates Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain in New Hampshire, the first primary contest. In national polls Paul registers about 4 percent. He recently collected $6 million in a 24-hour fund-raising drive from wealthy contributors.

Paul campaigners have showed up at demonstrations against the war in Iraq with signs saying “Join the Ron Paul Revolution.” Support groups for Paul have sprung up on a number of college campuses.

Paul opposes the war in Iraq from a rightist, nationalist standpoint, arguing that it is not in “America’s interests.”

He rails against “big” government, its intrusions on individual liberties, and the corruption of Washington “insiders.” He says he would abolish the Department of Education, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Reserve, and the CIA. Paul has called for repeal of most federal drug laws, and is against the death penalty.

The congressman calls for lifting the economic embargo against Cuba as the only effective way to deal with what he calls the “communist dictatorship” on the island.

During a May 15 Republican debate, Paul drew sharp criticism from the other candidates when he said that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the result of the U.S. presence in the Middle East. “They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years,” Paul said.

A recent meeting of his Pasadena campaigners was held in La Cañada Flintridge at the home of William Johnson, an international corporate lawyer. Average annual income in this small California city is $125,000. Steven Vincent, a yoga instructor, announced plans at the meeting to reenact the 1773 Boston Tea Party on the Santa Monica pier. Participants would carry mock tea crates labeled “welfare state,” “IRS,” and so forth. Fitness trainer and singer Juliet Annerino is planning a “Rock for Ron Paul” concert in January.

On December 16 hundreds of Paul supporters rallied in Boston to celebrate the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party and its anticolonial protest against “taxation without representation.” It coincided with an online national fund-raising effort that brought in $6 million in one day, mostly from wealthy, middle-class professionals.

Paul campaigns against affirmative action and women’s right to abortion. He is for doing “whatever it takes” to control the border and opposes amnesty for undocumented immigrants, whom he scapegoats as a drain on social services.

Paul has also attracted a wide range of conspiracy proponents. The December 1 Los Angeles Times interviewed supporters who “described Paul as the antidote to alleged conspiracies that ranged from the aerial spraying of toxic ‘chemtrails’ to the coverup of the true source of the Sept. 11 implosions to a plan to force the United States into a single world government.”

Paul says the United States should quit the United Nations, NATO, and the World Trade Organization.

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