Ron Paul

Ron Paul
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 14th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3 1997
Preceded by	Greg Laughlin
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 22nd district
In office January 3 1979 – January 3 1985
Personal details
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Carol Paul
Children	Ronnie Paul Lori Pyeatt Rand Paul Robert Paul Joy Paul-LeBlanc
Profession	Flight surgeon, Physician

Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is a 10th-term Congressman from Lake Jackson, Texas, a member of the Republican Party, a physician, and a candidate for the 2008 presidential election. He has represented Texas's 14th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997 and represented Texas's 22nd district in 1976 and from 1979 to 1985. He earned the nickname "Dr. No" because he is a medical doctor who votes against any bill he believes violates the Constitution. On March 12, 2007, Paul announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election seeking the nomination of the Republican Party.

In Congress, Paul has distinguished himself by his strict and sometimes unpopular adherence to small government conservative and libertarian principles. He has never voted to raise taxes or congressional pay and refuses to participate in the congressional pension system or take government-paid junkets.

Early life and education

Paul was born in Green Tree, Pennsylvania (southwest of Pittsburgh), to Howard Caspar Paul (1904–1997), the son of a German immigrant, and Margaret Paul (1908–2001), who owned a dairy farm outside Pittsburgh. He was the third of five sons born during seven years in the Great Depression. Paul's father had an eighth-grade education and was co-owner, along with his father's siblings, Lewis and Arthur, of Green Tree Dairy. In his early years, Paul began working at the dairy at age five. Later he delivered newspapers and worked in a drugstore and became a milkman when he was old enough to drive.

He graduated from Dormont High School in Dormont, Pennsylvania in 1953 with honors. He excelled in track and field, winning the Pennsylvania state championship in the 220-yard dash and coming in second in the 440-yard dash as a junior. He was also on the wrestling team and president of the student council.

Paul paid for his first year at Gettysburg College with saved newspaper-delivery and lawn-mowing money. Paul delivered mail and laundry on the side while in Gettysburg; for one year, he managed the college coffee shop. He gave up track after a knee injury, but joined the college swimming team instead after taking it up as therapy. He had been offered a full scholarship to run for the track team but declined it, worried that he wouldn't regain his previous speed. Paul was inducted into Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, and he served as steward and house manager of the fraternity. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1957.

He was then accepted to Duke University School of Medicine, where he received his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) in 1961. He did his internship and a year of residency training, both in internal medicine, at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit from 1961 to 1962 and residency in obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Pittsburgh from 1965 to 1968.

Paul is well-versed in the economic philosophy of the Austrian School of economics, and has authored several books (see below) on the subject. He has pictures of Friedrich von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard hanging on his office wall.

Military service

Paul's medical training was interrupted when he was drafted during the Vietnam War into the United States Air Force. He served as a flight surgeon at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas from 1963 to 1965. He then served in the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968 while completing his medical residency in Pittsburgh.

Medical career

Paul began his medical practice in Lake Jackson, Texas, as a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, and has delivered more than 4,000 babies. He took over the practice of a retiring doctor and was busy as the only obstetrician and gynecologist in Brazoria County. Paul said of his time as a doctor, "I delivered forty to fifty babies a month and did a lot of surgery."

Dr. Paul did not accept Medicare or Medicaid as a physician; instead, he would do the work for free or work at a greatly lowered payment or payment plan for needy patients.

Family

Paul and his wife, Carol Wells, were married on February 1, 1957. Carol asked Ron to their first date at a Sadie Hawkins dance. They went to colleges in different states but kept in touch and married in Ron's senior year at Gettysburg College.

They have five children: Ronnie, Lori, Rand, Robert, and Joy. They also have eighteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. While they lived in Detroit for his residency, Carol ran a dance school in their basement. Three of the children, Robert, Rand, and Joy also became medical doctors. Rand specializes in ophthalmology and Robert specializes in family practice. Like Congressman Paul, his daughter Joy specializes in obstetrics/gynecology. Paul supported his children during their undergraduate and medical school years, not allowing them to take part in subsidized federal student loan programs. He has not signed up for a congressional pension for the same reason.

Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Ron Paul

Ron Paul's political positions are largely in line with his stance as a libertarian, Constitutionalist, and non-interventionist. He is an advocate of freer trade, fewer taxes, smaller government, greater individual rights, and stronger national sovereignty.

Paul supports reduced government spending and reduced taxes. As Congressman, he has never voted to raise taxes or to approve an unbalanced budget. He has long fought for the prohibition of federal individual income taxes by repeal of the 16th Amendment. He has also called for the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the federal income tax, while acknowledging that he could only do so as president with the backing of Congress and the American public. Paul has been named "The Taxpayer's Best Friend" by the National Taxpayers Union every year he has been in Congress.

Paul is the only 2008 Republican presidential candidate to have voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. Paul believes in a strong national defense and voted for the War in Afghanistan in 2001, but suggested alternatives including giving the President authority to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which would allow war to be carried out against individuals rather than foreign countries and allow local bounty hunters familiar with the Afghanistani terrain to be hired to capture Osama bin Laden and his co-conspirators. Paul stated that the bill "would allow Congress to authorize the President to specifically target Bin Laden and his associates using non-government armed forces. Since it is nearly impossible for U.S. intelligence teams to get close to Bin Laden, the marque and reprisal approach creates an incentive for people in Afghanistan or elsewhere to turn him over to the U.S." In 2002 Paul also voted for the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act that would create a program where commercial airline pilots would be deputized as federal law enforcement officers and would then be permitted to carry guns aboard airlines, the bill was eventually amended to the Homeland Security Act of 2002 which Ron Paul voted against.

Paul's desire to secure U.S. borders remains a key topic in his 2008 presidential campaign. He opposes the North American Union proposition and its proposed integration of Mexico, the United States of America, and Canada. Paul voted "yes" on the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorizes the construction of an additional 700 miles of double-layered fencing between the U.S and Mexico. Paul opposes illegal immigration as well as amnesty for illegal immigrants. He also introduced legislation that would amend the Constitution to stop giving automatic citizenship to infants born in the United States to non-citizen parents, which has been in effect since the United States v. Wong Kim Ark case in 1898 extended U.S. jurisdiction to include all aliens lawfully residing within the United States, who were not explicitly protected from its jurisdiction by treaty.

Dr. Paul is a staunch defender of a right to self defense, a proponent of individual Second Amendment rights and is the only 2008 Presidential candidate with a voting record rated A+ by Gun Owners of America.

Ron Paul identifies himself as pro-life. He introduced H.R. 776 titled "Sanctity of Life Act of 2005" which would have defined life as beginning at conception and would have prohibited the federal government from regulating or funding abortions. Paul believes that abortion rights should be in the jurisdiction of the states citing that it is not an enumerated power of the federal government. Accordingly, he has challenged the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade. He has described the "rights of unborn people" as "the greatest moral issue of our time" and called for a federal ban on abortion via constitutional amendment, but does not support litigation to overturn Roe v. Wade.

He supports the U.S. converting to a free market health care system, saying in an interview on New Hampshire NPR that the present system is akin to a "corporatist-fascist" system which keeps prices high. He contends that prices decrease in industries with free markets due to technological innovation. He opposes the universal health care.

Records from the Federal Election Commission show that Paul accepts money from political action committees (PACs), although much less than most of his counterparts in Congress. Dr. Paul consistently received PAC money during the 1998(5.7%), 2000 (4.5%), 2002 (1.8%), 2004 (5.8%), and 2006 (2.1%) congressional electoral cycles.

In a special report, the group Clean Up Washington listed Paul as taking the seventh-least amount of money from PACs of all members of the House, as well as one of the members of Congress accepting the least amount of money from lobbyists and as ranking fourth in taking the most percentage of contributions from small donors. Their data studied contributions from the 2000 election cycle to midway through 2006. Of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates, he has accepted the least percentage of PAC money.

Paul can be "maddeningly uncooperative" to his Republican colleagues because he will not give in to pressure to vote for bills that he views as spending taxpayers' money in a wasteful manner or for bills that he feels violate the Constitution. Once when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich exhorted every Republican to vote the party line, he invoked a "Ron Paul exemption," saying Paul could vote as he pleased. Fellow fiscal conservative Jeff Flake said in 2006, "When I'm the only no vote, I can usually rest assured he's on a plane somewhere." Paul recounts that once, a bill passed 432-3. He thought the bill was based on a bad principle, and he had convinced the two members of the House sitting next to him to join him in casting a "No" vote while they waited.

Early congressional career

A prominent physician in his district when he went into politics, Paul became a delegate to the Texas state Republican convention in 1974. He had decided to enter politics on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon went off the gold standard completely. He said, "After that day, all money would be political money rather than money of real value. I was astounded."

File:Ron Paul and Reagan.jpg

Ron Paul led the Texas Delegation to nominate Ronald Reagan (Photo L to R: Ron Paul, Jack Fields, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Archer)

Paul was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congressman from the 22nd District of Texas in 1974, an election where Democratic candidates won heavily, against the incumbent Democrat Robert R. Casey. When President Gerald R. Ford appointed Casey as head of the Federal Maritime Commission, a special election was held in April 1976 to choose a new congressperson. Paul won that election but lost six months later in the general election to Democrat Robert A. Gammage. The vote was close: fewer than 300 votes out of 180,000. He then defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch. Paul won new terms in 1980 and 1982. Paul was the first Republican to represent the area in the House of Representatives. He was one of only four Republican congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in 1976, when Dr. Paul led the Texas delegation in support of Reagan at the national Republican convention.

Paul delivered babies on Mondays and Saturdays during his entire term as the 22nd District representative. During this time, he began to gain his reputation as "Dr. No", with his refusal to vote for laws he felt to be unconstitutional called "legendary" by the Wall Street Journal.

Paul was the first congressman, in the 1970s, to propose term limit legislation for the House of Representatives, where he declined to attend junkets or register for a congressional pension while serving four terms. He proposed legislation to decrease congressional pay at the rate of inflation. In 1980, when a majority of Republicans favored President Carter's proposal to reinstate draft registration, he told them that they were inconsistent in their views: they were more eager to register their children than they were to register their guns.

Paul served on the House Banking Committee during this time, where he spoke against the inflation he saw as being caused by the Federal Reserve. The US Gold Commission created by Congress in 1982 was his idea, and his conclusions from the commission were published by the Cato Institute as the book The Case for Gold. Paul's chief of staff from 1978 to 1982 was Lew Rockwell. Paul was a regular participant in the annual Congressional baseball game.

Paul was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in the 1984 GOP primary against Phil Gramm. Having chosen to run for the Senate instead of re-election, Paul left Congress in 1985 and returned to full-time medical practice and was subsequently succeeded by Tom DeLay, then a member of the Texas House of Representatives. In a farewell address on the House floor, Paul said, "Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare. Vote trading is seen as good politics. The errand-boy mentality is ordinary, the defender of liberty is seen as bizarre. It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."

1988 presidential campaign

In the 1988 presidential election, despite having no previous affiliation with the Libertarian Party, Paul won that party's nomination for the U.S. Presidency. Appearing on the ballot in 46 states and the District of Columbia, he placed third in the popular vote (with 431,750 votes - 0.47%), behind Republican George H. W. Bush and Democrat Michael Dukakis. Although he had been an early supporter of Ronald Reagan, Paul was critical of the unprecedented deficits incurred by Reagan's administration, for which his opponent George H.W. Bush had been vice-president.

Paul said that he was doing more during his presidential run than reach office: he was trying to spread his liberty-minded ideas and would often talk to school groups that weren't old enough to vote. "We're just as interested in the future generation as this election. These kids will vote eventually, and maybe, just maybe, they'll go home and talk to their parents."

During his time as a Libertarian candidate, Paul gained supporters nationwide who agreed with him on many of his positions—on gun rights, fiscal conservatism, home-schooling, right-to-lifers, and others who thought the federal government was heading in the wrong direction. These supporters formed a nationwide support base that encouraged him to return to office and supported his campaigns financially.

After the election, Paul had a coin business and worked at his own think tank until returning to Congress.

Later congressional career

Campaigns

In 1996, Paul returned to Congress after a tougher battle than he had faced in the 1970s. He thought that he could get more accomplished in Congress after the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in the 1994 election. His Republican primary opponent, Greg Laughlin, had support from leaders within the Republican Party, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor George W. Bush. Incumbent Laughlin had switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican side the year before, but despite efforts by the national party, challenger Paul won the primary by a large margin. While Gingrich and other Republican leaders visited the district stumping for Laughlin, Paul ran newspaper ads quoting Gingrich's harsh criticisms of Laughlin's voting record 14 months earlier, before Laughlin switched parties. Baseball player Nolan Ryan served as Paul's honorary campaign chairman. Paul was elected for the coastal 14th Congressional District rather than the 22nd District he had previously represented. The change in district was a result of the borders of redistricting as Paul continued to maintain his home in Lake Jackson.

His Democratic opponent in the fall election, lawyer Charles "Lefty" Morris, lost in a close margin despite running numerous attacks on Paul, including his past votes to repeal federal drug laws in favor of state legislation and portions of old newsletters, assisted by the AFL-CIO. Paul in turn labeled Morris a pawn of trial lawyers and big labor. He raised more money than Morris, with the help of his national network of donors: $1.2 million to Morris' $472,153. Ken Bryan, a Democratic consultant to some of Paul's opponents, has said, "He has one of the largest contributor bases in Congress, outside of the leadership." Most of Paul's contributions are given in small amounts by individuals. That year, he had the third-highest amount of individual contributions of any House member, behind Speaker Newt Gingrich and Bob Dornan.

In 1998 he again won the primary and the election and outraised his opponent by a large margin, $2.1 million to $734,000. Opposing a Democratic rice farmer and former Matagorda County judge, Loy Sneary, Paul won by 11 percentage points; he ran ads warning voters to be "leery of Sneary." Paul accused Judge Sneary of voting to raise his pay by 5%, increasing his judge's travel budget by 400% in one year, and creating more government bureaucracy by starting a new government agency to handle a license plate fee he enacted. Sneary's aides said he had voted to raise all county employees' pay by 5% in a "cost of living" increase. Paul countered that he had never voted to raise congressional pay.

In 2000, Sneary ran against Paul again, with Paul winning 60% to 40%. He raised $2.4 million to Sneary's $1.1 million in that campaign. Paul was re-elected in 2002. Unopposed in 2004, he was re-elected to his ninth term in the Congress, and he was re-elected again in 2006 for his 10th term by a 20-point margin, outraising his opponent $1.2 million to $600,000.

Paul has said that when he has money left over from campaigns, he either transfers it to his next campaign fund or donates it to charity.

He has drawn two primary challengers in the next election: Eric Dondero, a former aide fired by Paul, and Chris Peden, a Friendswood city councilman.

Relationship with district

Paul continued to work as an obstetrician in Brazoria County, Texas, even while serving in Congress, delivering many constituents' babies. As of 2001, he was one of few doctors in the House (eight, including dentists) and part of an even smaller group that continued to practice while in office. Journalists have reported that it is not unusual for younger people in his home district to approach him and say that he delivered them.

Paul is against some legislation that coastal or rural members of Congress usually are not. Paul's district in Texas borders the Gulf of Mexico with 675 miles of coastline and also includes suburbs of Houston; it was redistricted prior to the 2004 election. Paul is opposed to federally funded flood insurance because it requires those who do not live near flood zones to subsidize those who choose to live in an area that is prone to flooding and does not allow those in flood zones to choose their own insurer. In an "overwhelmingly rural region," Paul opposes farm subsidies because they go to big corporations rather than small farmers. Despite voting against bills with large support in Congress, such as the farm bill, the congressman's "contrarian nature" and devotion to lowering taxes has appealed to voters in the 14th District.

While Paul votes against all spending bills, he has diverted funds that have been authorized by other bills into his own district. Paul spends time in the district to compensate for "violat[ing] almost every rule of political survival you can think of." He sometimes spends three to four days a week in his district addressing constituents' concerns, often accompanied by one of his 17 grandchildren. He attends graduations, civic ceremonies, and Boy Scout honor ceremonies. In an expansive district, it is not unusual for him to log more than 300 miles per day visiting constituents or handling their concerns. He is particularly effective at reaching 14th District voters on veterans' issues, such as procuring medals for war veterans who lost or never received their medals; he holds medal ceremonies for those whose medals are being presented. He has helped senior citizens of the district get free or low-cost prescription drugs through a little-known drug company program. His staff sends out birthday cards to constituents, as well as condolence cards on the deaths of family members.

Sponsored legislation

Paul sponsors many bills in Congress, many of which, like ones that would abolish the income tax or the Federal Reserve, do not get out of committee. Nevertheless, he has been named one of the "50 Most Effective Members of Congress" by Congressional Quarterly. He has sponsored successful legislation to prevent the Department of Housing and Urban Development from seizing a church in New York state through eminent domain and a bill transferring ownership of the Lake Texana dam project from the federal government to Texas. Paul has also sponsored legislation to end the Bank Secrecy Act. Paul said in 2004 that he had refused to vote for more than 700 bills creating a larger government over his previous two terms in office. In March 2001, Paul introduced the "Constitutional War Powers Resolution of 2001" which would repeal the War Powers Resolution and not allow presidents to go to war without a formal declaration of war from Congress, except in cases of an attack on the US.

Paul was one of 17 members of a bipartisan coalition of members of Congress who filed a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton in 1999 over his conduct of the war in Kosovo. In the filing, they accused Clinton of not reporting to Congress within 48 hours on the status of the action as required by the 1973 War Powers Resolution and not first obtaining a declaration of war from Congress as required in the Constitution. Congress had voted 427 to 2 against a declaration of war with Yugoslavia and had voted to deny support for the air campaign in Kosovo. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that since Congress had voted for funding after the US was actively engaged in the war with Kosovo, legislators had sent a confusing message about whether they approved of the war. Paul said that the judge's decision was an attempt to circumvent the Constitution and make it legal for the president to conduct a war without approval from Congress.

Paul introduced legislation to declare war on Iraq in October 2002. He said he would not vote for his own bill, but if his fellow members of Congress wished to go to war in Iraq, they should follow the Constitution and declare war. In a hearing on the resolution, Republican Rep. Henry Hyde said, "There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. Why declare war if you don’t have to? We are saying to the President, use your judgment. So, to demand that we declare war is to strengthen something to death. You have got a hammerlock on this situation, and it is not called for. Inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn’t done anymore." As one of five Republicans to vote against the Iraq War Resolution, Paul inspired the founding of a group called the National Peace Lobby Project to promote a resolution he and Oregon representative Peter DeFazio sponsored to repeal the war authorization in February 2003. His column "35 Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq" was translated and published in German, French, Russian, Italian and Swiss publications before the Iraq War began.

Paul has asserted that his fellow members of Congress passed the PATRIOT Act without actually reading it and examining how it infringed on ordinary Americans' civil liberties, as a reaction to September 11. Paul has said his fellow members of Congress have increased domestic spending by 33% since Bush came into office. After introduction of a 2005 bill that was touted as "slashing" government waste, he wrote that the bill only decreased spending by less than a fraction of 1% and that "Congress couldn't slash spending if the members' lives depended on it."

Affiliations

Congressman Paul serves on the Committee on Financial Services, International Relations Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. He is vice-chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee and also serves on the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, Technology, and Economic Growth. Under the Committee on International Relations, he serves on the Western Hemisphere and Asia and the Pacific subcommittees.

Paul served as honorary chairman and is a current member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a political action organization dedicated to promoting the ideals of individual rights, limited government and free enterprise within the Republican Party. He also serves on the Liberty Committee, a group of liberty-minded congresspeople from both sides of the aisle. He is a founding member of the Congressional Rural Caucus, which deals with agricultural and rural issues.

Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions (96.8% in 2005–2006) from individuals.

Paul remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and addressed its national convention in 2004.

2008 presidential campaign

Main article: Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008

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Ron Paul's campaign slogan, "Hope for America"

Ron Paul formally declared his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination on March 12, 2007, as a guest on Washington Journal on C-SPAN.

Paul came in second in fundraising in New Hampshire during first quarter fundraising, trailing only Mitt Romney. Since he did not declare his candidacy until March, he had less time to raise money than other candidates who had declared earlier in the quarter.

Paul has participated in all three nationally-televised candidate debates held thus far. His most prominent moment came during the May 15 GOP Presidential debate when the following exchange occurred with fellow Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani:

PAUL: They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think [Ronald] Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting.

GIULIANI: That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.

PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah, yes there was blowback. The reaction to that was the taking of our hostages, and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free, they come and attack us because we're over there.

Paul drew three percent support in New Hampshire in a Zogby poll, fifth place among possible Republican contenders. In a CNN telephone poll conducted in February 2007, he was the candidate with the least name recognition besides John Cox. Paul also came in second in fundraising in Montana and at the head of the pack of "second-tier" candidates in 14 other states. In polling conducted at the Utah GOP convention on June 9, Paul placed second behind Mitt Romney.

Despite current national polls showing Paul to be favored by only three percent of Republican-leaning voters, Paul is receiving strong support on the Internet. He continues to rank highly in online indicators such as Technorati, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Eventful, visits to Paul's campaign website, and online polls conducted by news networks.

As of July 6, Ron Paul had the third most cash on hand of the Republican candidates, putting him ahead of John McCain with $2.4 million.

Newsletter writings on race

A 1996 article in the Houston Chronicle alleges that Ron Paul made comments about race in a 1992 edition of his Ron Paul Survival Report (a newsletter that he had published from 1985), including disparaging remarks about fellow congressperson Barbara Jordan.

In a 2001 interview with Texas Monthly magazine, Paul acknowledged that the comments were printed in his newsletter under his name, but explained that they did not represent his views and that they were written by a ghostwriter. He further stated that he felt some moral responsibility to stand by the words that had been attributed to him, despite the fact that they did not represent his way of thinking:

"They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them...I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they [campaign aides] said that's too confusing. 'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'"

He further stated:

"I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady... we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything."

Texas Monthly wrote at the time they printed the denial, "What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this." They state that it would have been easier for him to deny the accusations at the time, because the controversy would have destroyed most politicians.

Paul has separately criticized racism as a form of collectivism, grouping it with hate speech laws and affirmative action, which he also opposes.

Books authored

• Challenge to Liberty. Lake Jackson, TX: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education
• Gold, Peace, and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Economy. Lake Jackson, TX: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, 1981.([1])
• Ten Myths About Paper Money. Lake Jackson, TX: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education
• The Case for Gold. With Lewis Lehrman. Reprinted by Cato Institute, 1982; Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007. ISBN 0-932790-31-3. ([2])
• A Republic, If You Can Keep It
• Mises and Austrian Economics: A Personal View. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1984.
• Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution After 200 Years. Lake Jackson, TX: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, 1987. ([3] Book distributed with permission from Ron Paul)
• A Foreign Policy of Freedom. Lake Jackson, TX: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, 2007. ISBN 0-912453-00-1

Awards and honors

• Groseclose Prize and Leadership Award from the Mises Institute for monetary writing
• Mises Institute's $10,000 Gary G. Schlarbaum Prize (2003) for "lifetime defense of liberty"
• Leadership Award of the American Security Council Foundation for the Coalition of Peace Through Strength ("a bipartisan alliance of 177 national organizations, 230 members of Congress, and other pro-defense leaders across the country")
• Distinguished Service Award from Americans for Constitutional Action
• The Guardian of Freedom Award from the Young Americans for Freedom
• The Torch of Freedom Award from the Young Conservatives of Texas
• The highest rating ever given by the Council for a Competitive Economy
• Named "The Taxpayers' Best Friend Ever" by the National Taxpayers Union

External links

Official sites

• 2008 Presidential Campaign Website
  • Meetup
  • YouTube
  • MySpace
  • Facebook
  • Eventful
• U.S. House of Representatives Office of Ron Paul

Video

• FreeME.tv Ron Paul Internet television station. Provides a 24/7 continuous stream of latest Ron Paul News and Entertainment in reverse chronological order. Updated frequently as new videos become available.
• RonPaulTV.com Best of Ron Paul videos. Set to randomly play each time the site is visited.

Topic pages and databases

• Template:CongBio2
• Ron Paul Library, more than 800 articles and speeches by Ron Paul
• Archives of Ron Paul articles on LewRockwell.com
• On the Issues - Ron Paul issue positions and quotes
• OpenSecrets.org Congress and Presidential campaign contributions (from the Center for Responsive Politics)
• PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - Vote 2008: Ron Paul
• Template:VoteSmart
• Washington Post - Presidential Candidates: Ron Paul profile, finance, events