Ron Paul 2012?

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On the final day of this month's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll. He beat out mainstream Republicrat Mitt Romney with 30% of the vote (to Romney's 23%). In spite of his growing popularity among the American people and the talking heads on cable news, Paul's victory was discounted as meaningless because his "rabid" supporters "commandeered" the conference. At least this was the portrayal of the event, despite the fact that Paul supporters paid for their own tickets and managed their own conference transportation - a stark contrast, indeed, to the members of Romney's camp, who were bussed in and wined and dined.  Jack Hunter covers this nicely in his weekly video essay:



Regardless of the validity of the straw poll, I think the question now is: Will Ron Paul make another run for president in 2012; and, more importantly, should he?  My understanding, based on information coming from the Paul camp, is that if enough money can be raised by a specified date, they will make a go at it. They seem off to a strong start, with over 700,000 dollars raised on George Washington's birthday last week.

As one of those "rabid" supporters from the '08 campaign, if Paul says "I'm in," than I'm in and ready to go to work, making signs from shower curtains and harassing people at local fairs all over again.  But, I wonder if a Ron Paul run for president is not the most effective strategy in the larger effort of spreading of liberty and freedom. As much as I would love to see it, I don't think Ron Paul will be president. Still, a run at the presidency, at this point, would serve as a gigantic education campaign and could trigger the viral spread of the message of liberty. And therein lies the crux of my ambivalence. I am torn because as the chair of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee overseeing the Federal Reserve, Ron Paul is now in a unique position to make legitimate changes to the terrible central banking system and America's fiat money failures. A run for Senate in 2012 could realistically yield a victory, and with his son now a senator, the two of them could team up to make some serious headway in transforming our corrupt government.

If you are like me, you are incredibly rich and have tons of extra money right now. If you are interested in helping Ron make the choice to run, make a donation here.

Take a look at this great speech of Ron's at CPAC: