By Mike Wereschagin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, June 17, 2007
The size of the crowd wasn't remarkable, especially in terms of a presidential campaign.
What struck the candidate, though, as he faced the 300 or so people packed into a small New Hampshire restaurant last month, was the diversity of the crowd.
"Young and old, hippie types and business types, Republicans and Democrats and independents, anarchists, people who hate the IRS and the Federal Reserve," said Ron Paul, a Green Tree native, Dormont High School alumnus and Republican congressman from Texas' Gulf coast.
"Here I am, defending medical marijuana, and I've never even seen anyone smoke marijuana."
Paul's candidacy is as unlikely as the coalition it attracts. Just about everyone can find something to agree with in his platform, but few agree with it all. He supports an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, as well as dismantling much of the federal government -- from the U.S. Department of Education to the Internal Revenue Service. He wants to end corporate welfare and farm subsidies, and sever all U.S. ties with the United Nations.
"Government is supposed to be there to protect property and protect privacy," said Paul, 71. As he begins expounding on the central tenet of his political life, his words tumble out faster, but his voice stays even and friendly. "We have done almost everything wrong, and that has to be reversed."
If it's not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, it ought not to be federal law, Paul said. That's what drove him into politics in the first place -- what he saw as congressional abandonment of constitutional principles, he said.
"Everybody knows he's not going to be the nominee, or even make a decent showing," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "But politics is partly about the power of ideas."
Loyal supporters
Paul's statements have earned him a passionate following. When a Michigan GOP official tried to keep Paul out of the party's debates, he received so many angry phone calls, he had to change his home phone number, said Robert Bluey, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Politics.
Despite polling below 2 percent in scientific polls -- if the polls even register his candidacy at all -- Paul is among the most-watched candidates on Web sites such as YouTube. He routinely wins unscientific, online polls.
Videos featuring Paul on the Web site YouTube.com have had 1.1 million hits. Overall, Paul is second only to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., whose videos have been seen about 3 million times, according to the Web site Techpresident.com, which tracks candidates' online presence.
"There's this very loyal following, but I just wonder ... can you count on them to vote in the New Hampshire primary? Do they even know how to organize in the Iowa caucuses?" Bluey said.
Green Tree beginnings
Paul formed most of his ideas after he left Green Tree, in 1953, for Gettysburg College. One of five brothers, Paul grew up on his family's dairy farm and excelled academically and athletically at Dormont High School, which since has been folded into the Keystone Oaks School District. During his senior year, Paul lettered in track and was a National Honor Society member.
"He was a marvelous sprinter," said former teammate Paul Laughlin, 70, of Mt. Lebanon. But for a bad knee injury his sophomore year, Paul likely would have been a star football player, too, Laughlin said. Still, Paul won a state track championship -- the 220-yard dash -- during his junior year, said Laughlin, who graduated a year after Paul, in the same class as Paul's future wife, Carol Wells.
"I don't know that he ever had a cross word with anybody," Laughlin said. Paul was elected student council president his senior year, and the class voted him Friendliest and Best All-Around, according to The Torch, the school's yearbook. "I always thought that was quite a thing, for someone from Dormont to run for president of the United States."
Laughlin said he has plenty of political differences with his old classmate.
"His position on the war is my position, totally," Laughlin said, but the two disagree on things like Social Security -- Laughlin likes it, Paul does not. "Like it or not, there's a lot of good things that the government does."
During Paul's senior year at Gettysburg College, in 1957, he and Wells married. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in biology, Paul enrolled in Duke University School of Medicine, graduating in 1961. He served for three years as a flight surgeon in the Air Force, then moved to Texas in 1968 and began practicing as an obstetrician/gynecologist.
'Dr. No' takes office
After President Nixon abandoned the gold standard -- the economic model that backs the value of dollars with an equal worth of gold -- and Paul grew frustrated with what he saw as a disparity between the Constitution and federal laws being passed, he ran for Congress.
He first filled the unexpired term of another congressman in 1976 and lost re-election, but regained the seat in 1979. He held it until 1985, when he decided to return to medicine. But in 1996 -- again becoming fed up with the state of the union -- he regained his seat, and his district abutted the one represented by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
DeLay earned the nickname "The Hammer" for his enforcement of party discipline. Paul, by contrast, was dubbed "Dr. No" for his opposition to any bill he deemed unconstitutional.
"At times, it was frustrating that he wouldn't vote with us. At the time, though, you always understand where he's coming from," DeLay said.
The practice of using earmarks -- federal grants for projects in congressional districts -- to secure support on certain bills never worked for Paul. His opposition to most federal funding was so uniform that he refused to use federal grants to help pay for the college educations of his five children. Despite representing one of the most hurricane-prone areas in the nation, Paul opposes the National Flood Insurance Program.
"It's amazing to me" that voters keep re-electing Paul, said Dude Payne, a Democratic county commissioner in Brazoria County, where Paul lives. Paul's biggest asset -- besides his slogan, "The Taxpayer's Best Friend" -- probably is his consistency, said Payne, who pointed out that even after the controversial 2003 Texas redistricting added more Democratic voters to Paul's district, he beat a Democrat with about 60 percent of the vote.
"I don't think anybody can beat him," Payne said. "He pretty much votes no on any kind of pork."
Presidential ambitions
Paul ran for president in 1988, on the Libertarian ticket, and attracted about 432,000 votes -- less than 0.5 percent.
"It was worthwhile, but it wasn't all that productive, compared to what you can do in a major party," Paul said.
He's running this year on a platform that includes military nonintervention and withdrawing from the U.N. Paul said the nation's foreign relations should be based on trade, but he has opposed trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement because he said they help select corporations at the expense of free trade.
"We're building a lot of enemies around the world," Paul said.
His comments on the Iraq War and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have attracted the most attention.
During the second Republican debate, in South Carolina in May, Paul paraphrased al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, saying terrorists attacked the United States because of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. Fellow candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sharply rebuked him and demanded an apology, drawing applause from the crowd.
When asked how he'd handle the war if he won the election, Paul said: "I'd come home. I'd just get out of there. The war's about to spread into Iran, and I don't want that to happen."
Paul admits to being a long shot. "I don't deceive myself," he said. His hope is that once people hear him and let his statements sink in, they'll come around to his way of thinking.
After hearing about Paul's spat with Giuliani during the debate, Laughlin at first thought, "Oh, you really put your foot in your mouth there."
"But then, as you get to think about it -- not that there's any justification for what they did -- but that's what (al-Qaida members) think," he said. "That's why they attacked us and didn't attack Sweden."
Laughlin said he's enjoyed watching Paul run this race, just as he and his classmates used to enjoy watching him sprint in their youth.
"I wish him well," Laughlin said. "But I don't think I'd vote for him."
About Ronald Ernest Paul
Age: 71
Born: Green Tree
Residence: Lake Jackson, Texas, about 50 miles south of Houston
Family: Married to Carol; children Ronald, Lori, Rand, Robert and Joy.
Education: Graduated from Dormont High School in 1953; earned bachelor's degree in biology in 1957 at Gettysburg College; graduated from Duke University School of Medicine in 1961.
Political career: Filled a congressman's unexpired term in 1976; won 1978 election and served from 1979 to 1985; returned to medicine; then elected in 1996 to the seat he holds today.
Notable: Nicknamed "Dr. No" by his colleagues in the House of Representatives, Paul said he has never voted for higher taxes, an unbalanced budget, increased congressional pay, Internet regulations or gun control, and he has declined to participate in the Congressional pension program.
In his own words
On the two-party system: "I think it's anti-democratic in that it's hard (for third parties) to get on the ballot. It's hard to compete. Then when the two parties blend together on policies, there's really monopoly control on issues."
On America's place in the world: "We have accepted this international/nationalistic type of foreign policy. I think if we set a good standard, we set an example where people would want to follow us and emulate us."
On the United Nations: "It usually serves the interests of supporting factions in different countries, so I don't see it as really facilitating things. Besides, it's done by force. We take taxes from poor people here and give it to rich people in poor countries."
On the 16th Amendment, which legalized income taxes: "I just want to get rid of it."
On government's role: "I want government to do a lot less."
On cutting domestic spending: "I'd cut everything from corporate welfare. That's a lot easier than going after poor people's welfare. Besides, corporate welfare is bigger than food stamps for people."
On education: "We have an educational problem, and yet we, as Republicans, go in and double the size of it with No Child Left Behind. And it doesn't improve education."
Mike Wereschagin can be reached at mwereschagin@tribweb.com or (412) 391-0927.
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