January 13, 2007

Ron Paul Exploring a Presidential Run

This is interesting:

HOUSTON -- Rep. Ron Paul, the iconoclastic, nine-term lawmaker from southeast Texas, took the first step Thursday toward a second, quixotic presidential bid _ this time as a Republican.

Paul filed papers in Texas to create a presidential exploratory committee that will allow him to raise money. In 1988, Paul was the Libertarian nominee for president and received more than 400,000 votes. ...

Paul limits his view of the role of the federal government to those duties laid out in the Constitution. As a result, he sometimes casts votes at odds with his constituents and other Republicans.

Paul's candidacy will be nothing if not controversial. He voted against the authorization to use military force against Iraq on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. I've never looked into the details of his objection, but whatever it was, I can tell you it came from conviction. Ron Paul believes the Feds should act according to "the rules" (i.e., the Constitution,) and if the "rules" don't work, they should be changed rather than ignored or "reinterpreted." While I personally have sympathy for his philosophy, I anticipate Paul would feel himself severely constrained by the Constitution in his prosecution of the GWOT, which would put our military and law enforcement agencies in a weakened position. If I'm right on that, I'm not sure we can afford that at this juncture.

h/t : Greg

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 03:34 PM | |