Paul's independent message gets Internet boost
Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and an outside hope in the race to represent Republicans in the 2008 presidential election, wants to abolish federal income taxes, blames U.S. foreign policy for global terrorism and calls for an end to foreign aid.
Paul's embrace by the Internet generation has added life to a campaign that might have withered on the fringe before the era of blogs and e-mail.
He is a long shot for the Republican nomination, having finished fourth among GOP candidates in Michigan and fifth in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He placed second in Nevada behind Mitt Romney, but a distant second, with only 14 percent of the vote.
Nonetheless, Internet-fueled fund-raising raised nearly $20 million for his candidacy in the last quarter of 2007, topping the efforts of any other Republican during those three months. That effort has energized the 72-year-old former obstetrician and his supporters.
"It gives us credibility," Paul said of the money.
His fierce anti-war stance, agenda for a smaller government and literal view of the Constitution have attracted many Internet activists.
"There's only one thing that we have to do and that's obey the Constitution," the 10-term U.S. congressman tells voters.
"You wouldn't have a welfare state. You wouldn't be the policeman of the world," he said. "The government would be there to protect our privacy, not steal our privacy."
Before the fourth quarter, he had raised about $8.3 million -- peanuts compared to the $47 million produced by Rudy Giuliani and the $63 million of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
Paul's supporters staged a fund-raising spectacle on Dec. 16 -- timed for the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party that helped to propel U.S. independence from Britain.
"With Ron Paul there's a freshness about his willingness to defy Republican ideas, a Republican who takes on the Republican Party," said Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University.
"There's also a certain sense of authenticity to him that young people seem to be flocking to, not that he is going to win, but there's a level of attraction of a true libertarian who runs on it, who defends it, who's not embarrassed by it."
Paul said in an interview his ideas represent a philosophy Republicans long abandoned, but he has no interest in pursuing a third-party candidacy as he did in 1988 when he was the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate.
Paul grew up in Pittsburgh, graduated from Gettysburg College and earned his medical degree from Duke University. He served as a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon from 1963 to 1965 before settling, with his wife, Carol, in Texas, where in 1968 he established a practice in obstetrics/gynecology.
As a physician, he has delivered more than 4,000 babies. As a member of Congress, he said he takes inspiration from Samuel Adams, an 18th-century politician who helped foment the U.S. revolution.
"He was the agitator behind the scenes," said Paul, who has angered many in his own party by suggesting U.S. foreign policy contributed to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Terrorists don't come here because we are free and prosperous. Terrorists come here because we are in their face, we are in their country, building bases in their land and stealing their oil," he told voters before the New Hampshire primary.
He said he has been surprised by his support on college campuses.
His ideas offer plenty of nuances.
Although he opposes abortion and supports repealing the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized it, he opposes a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions nationwide and says states should decide the issue.
Paul advocates ending the Internal Revenue Service and halting income tax, but he admits such a policy would be doomed if most Americans wanted to continue with a federal welfare system.