As he heads into the New Hampshire Republican primary after capturing 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul is no longer the mystery he was when he began his run for president.
The 10-term Republican congressman from the Gulf Coast of Texas has become a star of the Internet, attracting an army of mostly young, energetic, fiercely loyal “Paulistas” and shocking the political establishment by raising more than $20 million in contributions, mainly via the Web.
A medical doctor who’s delivered 4,000 babies, Paul has been able to espouse his libertarian ideas about personal freedom, constitutionally limited government, non-intervention overseas and sound money during the presidential debates and in countless interviews in the mainstream media.
Conservative pundits, elements of the GOP and the Fox News Channel have tried to marginalize him or brand him as a “kook.” But Paul, 72, has been praised by commentators on the right such as Pat Buchanan and super-blogger Andrew Sullivan for standing “up for what conservatism once stood for” and challenging the party elite that has “trapped the U.S. in the Iraq nightmare.”
The following Q&A is assembled from two interviews with Paul, one from late 2000 and one in April, 2007, shortly after he announced he said would run for president.
Q: Why are you running for president -- and why now?
A: I’m responding to a lot of requests from supporters that I do this. I have agreed that the message of a constitutionally limited government is very deserving. We happen to believe that that the freedom movement is at a place now where the numbers are growing by leaps and bounds and that we can run a credible race in the campaign.
Q: How do you define your politics?
A: In a philosophic sense, I describe myself as strict constitutionalist. I believe the Constitution is a very libertarian document, and therefore I identify with classical liberal or libertarian ideas. I do not volunteer the definition of "conservative," and certainly not "liberal," in today's circumstances.
Q: For those who don't know the difference between a “classical liberal” and (the late) liberal New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, can you tell us the difference?
A: Well, the classical liberal, or the libertarian, or the constitutionalist, believes that government is designed to protect our liberties and to allow people to solve their own problems. It is not designed to regulate the economy, nor our personal lives.
Under the classical liberal viewpoint, government was there to restrain force and to allow people to use
Bill Steigerwald
Bill Steigerwald, born and raised in Pittsburgh, is a former L.A. Times copy editor and free-lancer who also worked as a docudrama researcher for CBS-TV in Hollywood before becoming a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a columnist Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Bill Steigerwald recently retired from daily newspaper journalism..
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