A Neo-Con I am not. Neither is Ron Paul, which to me makes him interesting.
What he is:
- Actually pro-lower taxes – not just about preaching lower taxes and then raising them to pay for Wars and big military budgets. He has never voted to raise taxes while in congress.
- Pro-life – automatically makes him more electable as a Republican than Gulliani, and even McCain. As a Physician in his private life he delivered over 3000 babies.
- Anti-Iraq War – as a Republican he voted AGAINST it in congress. How cool is that? He broke rank and file to do what he felt was right.
- Pro-constitution – He will not vote for increasing the government in any way that is not expressly allowed in the constitution
- Intelligent and not just preaching the party line – This is distinctively different. He was lambasted by Fox news and some other more conservative outlets for saying that the 9/11 commission stated that we are antagonizing extremist terrorist groups with our heavy presence in the middle east. But the point here is that he actually read the 9/11 commission, and understood the logical statements made in it in terms of Americans being woefully ignorant of the anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world. That says a lot for his understanding of Global politics relative to some of the other Republicans in the primary as well as our own current President.
Anyway, he is getting more and more attention as time goes, which I’m hoping will turn into a Season 6 of the West Wing style victory and make for an actually interesting Election.
But, while he is picking up steam Gulliani is already crowned King by some of the media for his “management” of the post-9/11 situation in NY, and McCain is running back to the far right neo-con side of things in order to try to swing the base away from the pro-choice Gulliani.
Personally I still disagree with Ron Paul on several things, but I admire his voting record and what I perceive as actual integrity that he seems to have in comparison with the current administration. I like that he isn’t playing the “Distance myself from Bush, but keep the party happy” line that some of the candidates are into right now, and I certainly like it better than what I’ve been hearing from Gulliani, which just makes me wonder how he is even participating, let alone leading, in a nationally staged election.
Vote Ron Paul in the primary, and raise the level of debate in the ’08 election. Lets not have a repeat of ’04…that was terrible.