By Gabe Bullard
Filed Wednesday, October 31, 2007 at 12:36 AM
Around the city and county, signs supporting Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul have been popping up on roadsides and overpasses.
The signs aren't being put up by the official Ron Paul campaign, though. Paul, a Texas Congressman has several devoted, internet-based grassroots support teams. Online, the supporters flood YouTube, message boards, social networking sites and blogs with comments, graphics and videos supporting their favorite candidate. Offline, these street teams are less visible but they make their support known through signs, fliers and protests.
The St. Louis area Ron Paul support group started this past summer. The group has grown from 40 members to roughly 250. On top of that, nearby cities like Edwardsville and St. Charles have their own groups.
The essentially Libertarian Paul is attracting Internet support reminiscent of former Democratic candidate and current DNC chairman Howard Dean. According to the lead organizer for the St. Louis area Ron Paul group, Tim Blessing, Representative Paul has won over many local apathetic and first-time voters, like Blessing himself, who admittedly voted for Ralph Nader twice, just to support a third party.
"Apathy is a tremendous thing, I've found out," says Blessing. "It's pretty easy to cure once you find someone or something to inspire you."
Blessing sat down this week for an interview with PubDef.net to discuss how he came to lead the group and what he's doing to attract new members.
Labels: 2008, Republicans
8 Comments:
Some years, the choices are so bad, that it makes sense to throw away your vote.
I don't think this is such a year. (2008). It could get that way for a lot of people if it is Giuliani against Clinton. I have already decided which one of those crooks I will force myself to vote for if the msm succeeds in its hellbound insistence upon shoving them--let's say down our throat, or some other metaphor.
Ron Paul as a republican makes no sense. As a third party---a little.
10/31/2007 12:16 PM
Ron Paul actually seems to believe in many of the things he espouses. Myself, even though I disagree with some of his beliefs, I'd vote for him over any of the others who are just spouting the same old crap.
10/31/2007 1:40 PM
I believe Ron Paul has a more consistent internal belief system than most of the other candidates. I mean, you can pretty much predict what his view on an issue will be if you understand his political philosophy. I will admit that I have a libertarian bent, so maybe I just find it easy to identify with him, but it seems to me that most candidates' views are customized to their respective constituencies, whereas Ron Paul's views are consistent with a well developed personal worldview. That makes him more genuine than the other candidates, in my opinion.
10/31/2007 2:58 PM
The St. Louis area Ron Paul support group started this past summer.
Is there some sort of 12-Step program involved as well? I kid. I kid.
Paul is the sole reason to watch the otherwise inane and incoherent GOP debates.
10/31/2007 5:32 PM
I personally think Ron Paul is full of it.
Ron Paul also wants withdraw from the UN, and through his border policies essentially return America to isolationist policies. I know he says he doesn't, but I haven't seen anything or heard anything from him that suggests anything other than withdrawal from the modern world.
Ron Paul wants to remove controls on Food Quality, and also wants to repeal mandatory vaccinations.
He also wants everyone to be home schooled (how are people working 12 hour days gonna school their kids?), and wants to have home schooling be equivalent to anything else, at the same time wanting to remove any kind of national standard for teaching.
He also hasn't said how he plans to reduce spending so he can make all those tax cuts, which has me lookin kinda sideways. I mean, I'm by no means against lower government spending, but it depends on where its coming from before I'll laud it.
I'm pretty much 50/50 with Ron Paul. There are some things he says that I really like, and some things that I really don't.
Oh, and he says the Iraq war is illegal because the UN didn't approve it. But he still wants to withdraw from the UN because he claims it impinges on America's sovereignty. So either he's BSing about caring that the Iraq war was illegal, or he's BSing about wanting to withdraw from the UN.
He also talks about the constitution and uses that as a basis for everything, more or less. If the constitution doesn't allow it, it shouldn't be going on, essentially. However, he still wants to overturn Roe v Wade. Last time I checked, the Supreme Court was responsible for interpreting the constitution, not Ron Paul. The Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment applied. Now, if Ron Paul is using the Constitution as his basis of rationale, he shouldn't be talking about overturning the decision. The Constitution doesn't say that the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution, so long as you like their interpretation. So I call BS on Ron Paul for that.
I've been hearing a lot about Ron Paul lately, but the more I read about him and his issues and his writings, the less I like him. He seems like just another BS politician.
11/01/2007 12:51 PM
^
Please provide citations for your claims.
"He also wants everyone to be home schooled"
Not true.
"He also hasn't said how he plans to reduce spending so he can make all those tax cuts"
Um, have you ever listened to one of his speeches? Paul would eliminate the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the CIA, the FBI, the War on Drugs, 90% of military spending. I don't agree with all of this, but he definitely knows where he is going to cut spending.
"Oh, and he says the Iraq war is illegal because the UN didn't approve it."
No. Paul states (rightly) that the war is illegal because the president authorized military force without a Congressional declaration of war.
11/01/2007 1:09 PM
Ron Paul personally would like it if Roe vs Wade never happened, but he isn't going to try to change that in the federal arena. His stance is that it should be up to the states. You assume way too many things. And besides, it wasn't until 17 years after our constitution was written that the supreme court ever got any real power. That's all because of John Marshall. Some people still believe that it shouldn't be the supreme court that decides what's constitutional. Instead it should be left up to the interpretation of the masses, or in the method we have...both houses of congress. The supreme court is such a small group, that you don't get a very representative sample of what the people think. That's really what they are there for though.
11/07/2007 10:01 AM
trying to navigate a course
through corrupt systems
is like trying to sip
around contaminated water...
permeation...
it affects all of us...
wasting a vote?
rethink what that is...
1/10/2008 12:44 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home