cheguevara
12-09-2011, 11:31 AM
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" - Ghandi
Ron Paul’s Army Eyes an Iowa Caucus Upset
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/12/09/ron-pauls-army-eyes-an-iowa-caucus-upset/#ixzz1g3WGtgQ2
It’s a cold Thursday night the week before finals, and a light dusting of snow is falling on the Iowa State campus. But inside the school’s student union, more than 1,000 supporters have queued up to catch an early glimpse of Ron Paul. Nearly an hour before the Texas Congressman is scheduled to appear, the line loops around corners and snakes back, full of fans toting placards and wearing Ron Paul buttons and hoodies. Near the front are a quartet of Nebraskans, who carpooled three hours from Omaha to hear Paul speak. “He’s the only one who understands our problems. For the rest of them, it’s like a geography bee — name the country, and they want to fight them,” says Jason Nunn, 28.
“He’s been fighting for my liberty since before I was born,” says his friend Bryan Jacoby, 28. “I came here with the expressed intention to shake the hand of the future President of the United States.”
The crowd shuffles into the cavernous auditorium a half-hour early, filling the seats, hugging the walls and spilling into an anteroom. After a long wait, Paul steps to the podium to address the throng. Paul’s is a stump speech unique in contemporary politics, one that pinballs from the case for more liberty and fewer military entanglements to the wasteful war on drugs, from Frederic Bastiat’s economic theories to the evils of the income tax and the nanny state. “I’m all for raw milk,” he tells the crowd, a point he also made at an earlier stop on Thursday. “I think you should have a choice about whether you want to drink raw milk.” A moment later, he is decrying the ban on hemp cultivation. “You can’t smoke hemp,” he says. “Or you can, but to get high you’d need a cigar as big as a phone pole.”
The 76-year-old Paul has always been dismissed as something of a curio within GOP establishment circles and among many voters, but in an unsettled year he has a legitimate chance to crash the party and capture the Iowa caucuses. He registered 17% in this week’s TIME/CNN/ORC poll, behind just Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, and a jump from the 12% he registered a month earlier. The irony of his climb is that Paul, the most unconventional politician in the field, is making headway by running perhaps the most conventional campaign of any Republican presidential hopeful. Numerous Republican insiders, including Governor Terry Branstad, have cited Paul’s infrastructure as the best in the state. “He has the most extensive organization, the most passionate people,” says Tim Albrecht, Branstad’s spokesman. “It’s impressive that he’s up to 18%. All he needs is maybe another 6% to win the Iowa caucuses. He just needs to grow a little bit.”
Ron Paul’s Army Eyes an Iowa Caucus Upset
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/12/09/ron-pauls-army-eyes-an-iowa-caucus-upset/#ixzz1g3WGtgQ2
It’s a cold Thursday night the week before finals, and a light dusting of snow is falling on the Iowa State campus. But inside the school’s student union, more than 1,000 supporters have queued up to catch an early glimpse of Ron Paul. Nearly an hour before the Texas Congressman is scheduled to appear, the line loops around corners and snakes back, full of fans toting placards and wearing Ron Paul buttons and hoodies. Near the front are a quartet of Nebraskans, who carpooled three hours from Omaha to hear Paul speak. “He’s the only one who understands our problems. For the rest of them, it’s like a geography bee — name the country, and they want to fight them,” says Jason Nunn, 28.
“He’s been fighting for my liberty since before I was born,” says his friend Bryan Jacoby, 28. “I came here with the expressed intention to shake the hand of the future President of the United States.”
The crowd shuffles into the cavernous auditorium a half-hour early, filling the seats, hugging the walls and spilling into an anteroom. After a long wait, Paul steps to the podium to address the throng. Paul’s is a stump speech unique in contemporary politics, one that pinballs from the case for more liberty and fewer military entanglements to the wasteful war on drugs, from Frederic Bastiat’s economic theories to the evils of the income tax and the nanny state. “I’m all for raw milk,” he tells the crowd, a point he also made at an earlier stop on Thursday. “I think you should have a choice about whether you want to drink raw milk.” A moment later, he is decrying the ban on hemp cultivation. “You can’t smoke hemp,” he says. “Or you can, but to get high you’d need a cigar as big as a phone pole.”
The 76-year-old Paul has always been dismissed as something of a curio within GOP establishment circles and among many voters, but in an unsettled year he has a legitimate chance to crash the party and capture the Iowa caucuses. He registered 17% in this week’s TIME/CNN/ORC poll, behind just Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, and a jump from the 12% he registered a month earlier. The irony of his climb is that Paul, the most unconventional politician in the field, is making headway by running perhaps the most conventional campaign of any Republican presidential hopeful. Numerous Republican insiders, including Governor Terry Branstad, have cited Paul’s infrastructure as the best in the state. “He has the most extensive organization, the most passionate people,” says Tim Albrecht, Branstad’s spokesman. “It’s impressive that he’s up to 18%. All he needs is maybe another 6% to win the Iowa caucuses. He just needs to grow a little bit.”