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Yesterday, I mentioned that Ron Paul has been stingy with spending his campaign resources.  Today's NY Times reports that Ron Paul has begun ramping-up his staff:

The support has allowed the Paul campaign to expand both in reach and in size, and it has planned a second round of television spots (the first were broadcast in Iowa in August). And the campaign staff has been increased to 44 people from 10 over the last 10 weeks.

Update - 10:02:  Reason's David Weigel points out that Paul's "11th hour fundraiser" brought in $1.2 million in a week.  In terms of Paul's spending, he also points out that Paul's burn rate is around 35 percent.

It dominated headlines yesterday when Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, announced her campaign juggernaut had outpaced all rivals in the campaign fundraising horse race with a $27 million haul in the third quarter.

Today's fundraising announcement by Rep. Ron Paul, the Republican Libertarian ob-gyn from Texas, doesn't involve quite as much money, but is downright jaw-dropping.

His campaign is revealing today that in the 3rd quarter Paul raised $5,080,000. This is more than double his 2nd quarter figure of $2.4 million and no small sum for an insurgent campaign.

Today the President vetoed the controversial SCHIP bill that passed the house by a vote of 265-159 last Tuesday.   The House will not take up a provision to override the veto until October 17th as Democrat leadership knows they don't have the votes (at least 15 short) and they hope that liberal groups can take the next 2 weeks to blast Republicans in their districts in hopes of persuading 15 members of Congress to switch their position.

As I have noted in earlier Blogs, no one has argued against the bill because they don’t want children’s healthcare.  In fact, the President has called for a $5 Billion increase in the program and I think children’s healthcare is something we can all get behind and support, but this is simply not a bill to provide healthcare to poor children.

SCHIP will cost the government over $4,000 per year for every newly insured child, compared to $2,300 per year to add a child to a private insurance plan. In order to disguise the $40 billion in spending the Senate proposes to cut SCHIP by 80% in 2013, of course the supporters of this bill do not really intend to cut SCHIP, which would force millions of kids off the program, so the overall cost of the bill is closer to $110 billion, which more than doubles the cost of the current program.

I also did a blog post yesterday on the “sin tax” that would be imposed on smokers in order to fund this vastly expanded version of SCHIP which is just totally unrealistic. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has indicated that cigarette taxes are one of the most regressive taxes, that is, a tax that falls more heavily on lower income individuals as a percentage of income. Furthermore, this proposal has a faulty premise and will cost taxpayers more. With a shrinking tobacco market, this tax uses declining revenues to pay for an expanding program. According to estimates, it would take 22 million new smokers in the United States in the next 5 years to pay for this program.

In addition and what is becoming true to form  for recent Democrat proposals , this bill makes it easier for illegal immigrants to get healthcare. It weakens requirements to prove citizenship  creating  an “expresslane” provision that allows a mere personal statement of citizenship in order to qualify to receive these benefits.

The Democrat leadership can delay the vote to override for the next two weeks, but as the facts become clearer to the American public, it should just solidify the resolve of those opposed to this terrible piece of legislation.

The Paul movement is probably one part Buchanan bridage and one part fiscal hawk. It is clearly active in ways that most of us haven't adequately understood? Paul may be in a position to be a giant killer now. Imagine if he finishes second or third in New Hampshire ....

... And Mike Huckabee raised a million. Realistically, with so little cash, he can either run a single flight of ads for two weeks or fund his field operations. His volunteer base has to expand at a rapid pace if he wants to remain viable. The political elites will be very hard on Huckabee tomorrow.

Democrats began blasting Bush with the ink barely dry on the veto. "Today we learned that the same President who is willing to throw away a half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

I noted your scoop about the third party threat from social conservatives.  You might review the history of the "Manhattan 12," a dozen or so conservatives who "suspended" their support for Richard Nixon in 1971.  The concerns back then were primarily economic and foreign policy as opposed to social.  Also, the candidate who emerged from this, John Ashbrook, ran a marginal race for a couple of primaries against Nixon and then dropped out.  The lesson is:  without a strong candidate, these protest movements can have a limited impact.    I'm not sure how much reach Roy Moore has.  We know Alan Keyes is not a serious candidate.

Recently, there has been much debate over the children’s healthcare proposal.  I personally did not support this legislation for a variety of reasons; however one reason that really caught my eye was the funding mechanism for this improperly named SCHIP bill. 

In order to fund this drastic and fiscally irresponsible expansion of SCHIP, it requires the inclusion of a “sin tax” on smoking.  Now, I personally don’t smoke and have never smoked, but we all have habits or hobbies that someone else might consider a “sin”.  What is happening here is an attempt by the majority of people who don’t smoke to tax those that do.

You will no doubt see many more attempts by Democrats to mandate “sin” taxes. But, even if you don’t smoke, keep in mind that we all have things we like to do, eat, or drink that are not good for us.

We should stand against these punitive taxes on the enjoyment of others.  Here is a list of the proposed taxes on tobacco in order to fund SCHIP:

• cigars from 20.719% to 53% with a $3 per cigar cap;
• cigarettes from 39 cents to $1;
• cigarette papers from 1.22 cents to 3.13 cents;
• cigarette tubes from 2.44 cents to 6.26 cents;
• snuff from 58.5 cents to $1.50;
• chewing tobacco from 19.5 cents to 50 cents;
• pipe tobacco from $1.0969 to $2.8126; and
• roll-your-own tobacco from $1.0969 to $8.8889

"Fred Thompson has a folksy, good old boy persona on the stump, but it may not last much longer."

Senator McCain has rebounded from his summer lows but seems to have a limited potential for growth. Mitt Romney has spent tens of millions of dollars, yet has failed to become a significant player on the national stage. And we have yet to see if Fred Thompson will try to compete as a regional or a national candidate.