Who is Ron Paul?

You’ve probably seen the signs - they’ve been popping up all over the place. Some are quite large, almost billboard-sized, while others are much smaller. Some were obviously made professionally, while others appear to have been cranked out in someone’s garage with some stencils and a few cans of spray paint. But they all demand your attention, and they all say the same thing.

“Ron Paul for President 2008.”

And unless you’re a real political junkie who takes the time to get familiar with all the presidential candidates (both great and small) at election time, your reaction is probably something along the lines of “Ron who?”

How can a guy be getting this much love from an obviously motivated segment of the voting public yet be virtually unknown by so many people at the same time? Welcome to the wacky, unpredictable world of Ron Paul, folks.

Ron has represented Texas in the House of Representatives for many years and he’s one of the less-publicized candidates running for the Republican nomination in 2008. This is actually not his first run at the presidency. He ran as the Libertarian candidate in 1988, although he maintained his membership in the Republican Party while doing so.

As you might imagine, that did not endear him to members of his own party, and indeed Ron has always acted more like a Libertarian than a modern Republican. He is proud of the fact that he has never voted for a tax increase, and if he had his way the federal government would be greatly scaled back and operate on a balanced budget. That kind of thinking has, of course, become something of an anachronism in today’s Republican Party, and Ron’s name isn’t too high on their VIP list.

Predictably, the mainstream media hasn’t paid a whole lot of attention to his long shot campaign. Some of his views are so far outside the mainstream within his own party (he wants us to withdraw immediately from Iraq, for example) that his campaign has had something of a sideshow air to it.

But a funny thing is happening to Ron Paul on the road to obscurity. His campaign has experienced a surprising groundswell of what the political hacks like to call “grassroots” support over the last few months. Largely thanks to the Internet and his performance in recent debates, the 72 year-old congressman has caught fire among people who believe that the government is too big, too invasive, and generally out of control. And it turns out that there are a lot of people who feel that way.

They aren’t just putting up signs, either - they are opening up their wallets as well. In the last quarter Ron raised $5.2 million. John McCain, one of the “legitimate” Republican candidates barely beat him with $5.7 million. He is also the only candidate whose contributions have been steadily increasing as we get closer to the primaries. The crowds he speaks to when he puts in an appearance have also been growing steadily larger. And his standing in the polls, especially in the early battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire, has been rising as well.

The odds against him winning the nomination, given his outsider status in his own party and the general public’s fear of radical change, remain long. The likelihood that he will make some noise in this election season, however, has already been decided. He has a committed, energized, and largely young following, and they have already ensured that he will not be marginalized as the Republicans would no doubt prefer.

Here’s the thing I like most about Ron Paul’s candidacy. When people talk about his campaign, they aren’t talking about who he’s married to, or what church he goes to, or how he styles his hair. All the talk about his campaign is centered on his ideas, his view of the government’s place in our society, and what he wants to do as president.

Talk about a breath of fresh air. Thanks, Ron, and good luck in Iowa.