Ron Paul - Another Introduction

Today, the Concord Monitor writes about Ron Paul:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul seems to believe that both major parties are wrong on most things most of the time, most of all about fiscal prudence and foreign policy. That's why, though he has Powerball odds or worse of winning the presidency, it's refreshing and thought-provoking to have the 71-year-old surgeon in the race.

Paul, a five-term Texas congressman, ran as the Libertarian Party's candidate for president in 1988, but he's on the national stage this time because he's running as a Republican. He is passionate about his belief in small government, fidelity to the Constitution, faith in the free market and fear of foreign interventionism. He backs a return to the gold standard and the abolishment of the income tax. He is often marginalized as an extremist. But he is not an angry man, and that's part of his considerable charm.

Paul met with the Monitor's editorial board yesterday. He is charismatic in the way television doctors of the 1960s like Marcus Welby were. He seems incapable of not saying exactly what he believes, and he's the only Republican candidate to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The diversity of opinion he brings to his party is healthy and provides anti-war Republicans with a choice.

Paul smiles often and cuts to the quick of political folly. He was, he says, in the Air Force during the Cuban missile crisis, when nuclear warheads 90 miles offshore were pointed at America. That crisis was defused with diplomacy, he said. Now, politicians are talking about going to war with Iran and "hysterical over a weapon that doesn't exist."

Paul adamantly believes that it's both arrogant and counterproductive for the world's only superpower to meddle in the affairs of other nations and engage in nation-building. It makes Americans less safe, he says, because occupying another country turns some of its most desperate and troubled residents into suicidal terrorists. It's a point that few Republican candidates are willing to make.

Paul fears the loss of freedoms at home more than he does terrorist attacks. The prescriptions he dispenses are common sense and fidelity to the Constitution. The United States began going astray about a century ago and then rapidly under President Woodrow Wilson, he said. He believes in market solutions to most problems but says he is not running to undo the welfare state. The needy will receive care, he said.

Paul can simplify problems in a way that must give his Republican rivals fits. On Iraq and the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy he said: "We're taxed to blow up their bridges, then we're taxed to rebuild their bridges. Meanwhile, our bridges are falling down."

There is nothing to be gained by staying in Iraq, Paul said. America left Vietnam and it became a friendly trading partner. No one knows what the outcome of leaving would be, but in time, the same thing could happen in Iraq.

At times, Paul seems to be campaigning on issues history discarded a century ago. But he does so with so much wit, concern for personal freedom and an absence of malice and ego that, rather than put people off who disagree, he makes them think. That's why his candidacy contributes so much to the race.