The ONLY Way to know Ron Paul “Absolutely” Won’t Run Third Party.

Ron Paul supporters are dedicated to their candidate.  Most will not vote for another candidate, regardless.  They are as principled as the candidate himself, vowing not to hold their noses when they vote.  They would rather abstain, than to vote for the “status quo” be it a Republican or Democrat.

Knowing this, we can draw a few conclusions if Ron Paul DOES NOT win the GOP nomination.

1. His supporters will convince him to run third-party, and they will vote for him, or
2. Paul will not run third-party, and a large portion of his supporters either vote for another third-party candidate, or vote for no one.

Most arm-chair pundits conclude that if Paul runs third-party, it will hand the general election to Obama.  While this is not a given, he will most definitely be labeled a spoiler should this happen.  But what most Republicans don’t understand is that the “spoiler threat” does not deter “hard-core” Ron Paul’s supporters.  They will vote for him regardless, and campaign for him with all of their might in hopes of winning.

So if Paul runs third-party, the only way the GOP can assure themselves a win over Obama, is to vote for Ron Paul in the general election.

However, before we even get to that point, it must be understood, that if Ron Paul does not get the GOP nomination, and does NOT run third-party, a large percentage of his supporters will not vote for the GOP nominee.  It’s unlikely that Paul will endorse those he has called the “status quo”.  He is a man of principle, after all.

So, while it may “burn you up” that Ron Paul’s supporters are so dedicated, it really leaves the GOP with one option to cruise to a win over Barack Obama.  That is to nominate Ron Paul as the GOP nominee.

If you would like to read more about this phenomenon, check out this article.

Top Presidential Campaign Donors through the Third Quarter 2011

A comparison of top Presidential Campaign donors is very revealing.

Actually, many may not be surprised to see Obama receiving large contributions from academia, and Rick Perry getting donations from energy companies.  But what about Mitt Romney and his Wall Street connections?

But the most revealing, is perhaps the top 3 donors for Ron Paul.  Congressman Paul wants an end to the wars, but yet he gets more money from the armed services than any other candidate!  That’s a pretty clear message.

As they say, “follow the money”.

Source: OpenSecrets.org

Top Five Presidential Campaign Donors by Candidate

Barack Obama			Mitt Romney
Microsoft Corp	$170,323		Goldman Sachs	$354,700
Comcast Corp	$116,155		Credit Suisse Group	$195,250
Harvard University	$94,225		Morgan Stanley	$185,800
Google Inc	$90,166		HIG Capital	$176,500
University of California	$83,679		Barclays	$155,250
Rick Perry			Ron Paul
Ryan LLC	$197,800		US Air Force	$23,437
Murray Energy	$66,803		US Army	$23,053
USAA	$51,500		US Navy	$16,973
Contran Corp	$50,000		Mason Capital Management	$14,000
Ernst & Young	$45,300		Microsoft Corp	$13,398
Michele Bachmann			Herman Cain
Carbun Concepts	$15,600		Wausau Homes	$9,800
College Loan Corp	$12,400		Wells Fargo	$8,300
Hubbard Broadcasting	$10,750		Houston Texans	$7,400
Fagen Inc	$10,000		Cold Spring Granite	$6,000
Empire Office Inc	$10,000		Cinco Natural Gas	$5,200
Jon Huntsman			Newt Gingrich
Fertitta Entertainment	$32,000		Rock-Tenn Co	$25,000
Ultimate Fighting Championship	$26,500		Poet LLC	$17,000
Station Casinos	$26,000		First Fiscal Fund	$15,000
Crow Holdings	$20,000		American Fruits & Flavors	$10,000
Fresenius Medical Care	$17,400		State Mutual Insurance	$10,000
Rick Santorum			Gary Johnson
Blue Cross/Blue Shield of South Carolina	$15,500		Tower Energy Group	$10,000
Universal Health Services	$14,750		Ryan LLC	$5,000
Kimber Manufacturing	$12,300		Corriente Advisors	$5,000
Achristavest	$10,000		Welcom Products	$5,000
El Dorado Holdings	$10,000		Zyvex Corp	$2,500

The Crazy Ron Paul

by Marc Gallagher

It occurs to me (and many others) that if the GOP wants nothing more than to
just beat Obama then Ron Paul is the most viable candidate in the Republican
field. I’ll make a prediction. If any other candidate is the GOP nominee then
Obama will be settling in to the Oval Office for “4 more years” in 2013. That is
of course if the world doesn’t end in December of 2012… oops… did some “crazy
Ron Paul supporter” juice just leak out of me by mistake? Maybe.

There are Republicans that will only vote Republican and stand behind the
nominee no matter who it is.

There are Democrats that believe in unicorns, double rainbows, and “Yes we
can!” that will vote for Obama no matter how much his actions suggest “Oh no we
didn’t!”.

Then there are the the rest of us who will vote for the guy (Sorry Michele
and Sarah but you gals don’t have a chance… how’s that feel coming from a Ron
Paul supporter?) that actually agrees with us on approximately 80 to 100% of
what we believe in.

If Ron Paul were the GOP nominee Obama would be forced to attack from the
right on foreign policy, alienating those liberal voters who are ignorantly
sympathetic to the drone-bombing fetishist, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Obama
would be compelled to “let-me-be-clear” his way out of not being very clear on
why there are still troops in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and maybe Syria and
“Pock-ih-stohn”.

Now where would those voters turn after being stabbed in the back by their
warmonger-in-chief? That’s right, the only other candidate in the race with
years of truth and integrity spilling out of him: Ron Paul.

Nearly every question Paul received during the debate last week on MSNBC was
obviously aimed at scaring people who have become dependent on the federal
government. Even the CNN “Tea Party” debate earlier this week had some of this
as well. Don’t fall for their magic markers. Paint your own picture of who Ron
Paul is and what he believes (this video is a great start).

Newsflash: Hey MSNBC viewers, everything you despise about FOX News is
exactly what MSNBC does except the paint dries blue, not red.

You have to take the crazy out of yourself before you will notice that Ron
Paul is just not crazy. He is the candidate with the most common sense. I’m sure
that one of Paul’s trusted advisers said to him prior to the debate, “Ron, if
you look at the rest of the candidates on that stage, and you can’t find the
sane one, then YOU are the sane one.”

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‘Crony capitalism’ draws attention in GOP race

By PATRICIA KILDAY HART

In its brief but controversial life, the Texas Residential Construction Commission won far more detractors than admirers. Former Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn called it “a builder protection agency” that created additional roadblocks for homeowners living with shoddy construction. To state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, the agency served only “to shield home builders from being responsible” for defective work. The Texas Sunset Commission concluded the agency did “more harm than good.”

The TRCC, however, had at least one friend who mattered: Houston home builder Bob Perry, who has given Gov. Rick Perry more than $2.5 million during his tenure in office. An advocate for the agency from its creation in 2003 until it closed its doors in 2010, the home builder’s imprimatur was significant. His lobbyists played a key role in its inception; his company’s general counsel, John Krugh, was appointed to serve on the commission by Gov. Perry, no relation to Bob Perry, one month after the home builder gave a $100,000 campaign contribution to the governor.

Now dormant, the TRCC serves as a case study of how wealthy contributors can shape public policy. In this year’s hard-fought Republican presidential primary, the agency likely will get renewed scrutiny as Perry’s Republican competitors search for ways to distinguish themselves from the Texas governor. In a speech last week in Iowa, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took aim against career politicians who reward their campaign contributors with government favors.

“There is a name for this. It’s called ‘corporate crony capitalism,’ ” she said. “I believe in the free market and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids. It will lead to our downfall if we don’t stop it now.”

While Palin won applause from her conservative audience by focusing on the president, many political observers believe her remarks were aimed at another target: Rick Perry, whose lengthy tenure in office leaves him vulnerable to the charge he has rewarded campaign contributors with government favors. She raised a question central to the GOP’s mission: If Republicans hope to defeat Obama because he engages in “crony capitalism,” is Perry the right candidate to carry that message?

“When she said ‘crony capitalism,’ who else could it be? It had to be Perry,” said Dr. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia‘s Center for Politics. “She mentioned Obama, but whoever wrote her speech, it had a Republican dimension to it.”

‘Everybody does it’

To Sabato, the salvo from Palin provided evidence that the Republican contest was far from decided. He expressed doubts, however, that Palin or other Perry opponents would make much headway with the “crony capitalism” charge.

“People are cynical,” he said. “Basically, people expect a certain level of corruption from all high officials. After all, you can go through and name probably 200 individuals that Obama has appointed who gave him big contributions. People shrug their shoulders and say ‘everybody does it.’ ”

Sheila Krumholz, director of the bipartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance issues, agreed that Perry is “helped by the fact that this is the system by which all candidates raise money and the system in which they operate.”

However, she added, “I do think there are lines in the sand which, when candidates cross them, they do so at their peril. There have been instances of a scandal or perceptions that candidates in the pocket of specific interests and that will be fodder for their opponents. I don’t think he can count out the ire of the voters.”

Inherent conflict

To Texas lawmakers of both parties, the TRCC crossed that line of propriety.

“This was a reward,” said state Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who fought to shut down the agency. “Bob Perry gave a ton of dough and got rewarded.”

But Anthony Holm, a spokesman for the home builder, said it was “absurd” to link the creation of the agency to campaign contributions to the governor. “A state agency in Texas can only be created by 181 Democrats and Republicans,” he said, referring to the Texas Legislature.

The creation of the agency meant that consumers with complaints of poor workmanship had to go first to the agency for dispute resolution, instead of the courthouse. Farrar said that in practice, that meant “consumers lost a lot of rights.”

A state Sunset Commission report bears out that charge: Before lawmakers decided to end its existence, the TRCC resolved only 12 percent of its cases to the satisfaction of consumers. The rest wound up going to court, the report noted, “the very outcome” the TRCC was supposed to avoid.

State Sen. Bob Duncan, R-Lubbock, initially supported creation of the agency but became dismayed when Perry appointed Krugh to the commission. While on the commission, Krugh worked actively against legislative changes that many believed would have made the TRCC more responsive to consumers.

The Texas Senate confirmation hearing for Krugh illustrated the inherent conflict in naming Bob Perry’s lawyer to the commission. Duncan asked Krugh about his opposition to legislation that would have made the agency more consumer friendly. When Krugh replied that he opposed them “as a builder,” Duncan admonished him.

“I’m asking you to take off your builder hat. When you are sitting on this commission, you are sitting in a fiduciary (capacity) for the State of Texas. You have to make decisions based on … what’s fair and balanced, not what’s in the best interests of the builder.”

Krugh, who no longer works for Perry Homes, could not be reached for comment, but in a 2005 interview with Texas Monthly, he said he hoped the agency would help homeowners avoid costly and unpredictable litigation. “The old system drove them to their lawyers and their experts and they got caught up in what I call this vortex of litigation, and they couldn’t get out,” he said. “The third-party intervention at least gives the homeowners some control over what goes on before they get caught up in that vortex.”

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David Pakman vs Robin Koerner: Should Liberals Vote for Ron Paul?

The Issue with Romney is the Issues

By Max Pappas (citations in original article from FreedomWorks)

After keeping his distance from the tea party movement since its inception, the ever calculating Mitt Romney has realized he needs the tea party if he is to win his bid to be president of the United States.  So he is going to speak at his first tea party event soon.

Reminder to Mitt Romney: The tea party movement is not only a reaction to the big government policies of President Obama and the Democrats who ran Congress from 2006-2008.  It is also a reaction to the disappointment and frustration with big government Republicans like you, who ran the country too much like the Democrats for too many years.

To put it another way, we support free markets, constitutionally limited government, and fiscal responsibility and we oppose politicians from both parties who do not.

Romney does not, so we oppose him.

A few of highlights from Romney’s record showing just how unfriendly he has been over the years to the ideas the tea party holds dear (links and details further below):

• Romney distanced himself from Reagan and Reagan’s policies
• Romney didn’t like the Contract with America
• Romney led the fight for and implemented health care reform almost identical to ObamaCare
• Romney called his beta version of ObamaCare “a model for the nation”
• Romney defended the individual mandate, saying,

 “I like mandates. The mandates work.”

• Romney supports cap-and-trade “on a global basis”
• Romney worked to regulate “greenhouse gas emissions” in Massachusetts
• Romney got Massachusetts involved in a regional climate change pact
• Romney supports ethanol subsidies
• Romney wants to increase spending “substantially” on energy research
• Romney opposes the Flat Tax
• Romney refused to support the 2003 Bush tax cuts
• Romney’s claim to not have raised taxes is called “mostly myth” by Cato Institute
• Romney thought Obama’s stimulus would “accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery”
• Romney supports TARP
• Romney says there’s nothing wrong with companies asking for bailouts
• Romney supports No Child Left Behind
• Romney supports reappointing Ben Bernanke to chairman of the Federal Reserve

Health Care

• In 2006, Mitt Romney imposed a health care law on Massachusetts that served as a blueprint for ObamaCare.  NPR states that ObamaCare

“was based, almost line for line, on the Massachusetts model.”

• Obama thanked Romney for RomneyCare, saying at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Boston,

“Yes, we passed health care with an assist from a former Massachusetts Governor… Great idea.”

• RomneyCare, like ObamaCare, is based on an individual mandate, which Romney continues to defend. A presidential debate in 2008 featured the following exchange:

GIBSON: But Gov. Romney’s system has mandates in Massachusetts — although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.

ROMNEY: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.

• Romney encouraged a broader use of government forcing individuals to make government mandated purchases, saying,

“Everybody in our state has to have health insurance and that’s a model which I think has some merit more generally.”

• Romney’s plan, like ObamaCare, fines those who don’t purchase insurance that is officially approved and heavily regulated through an “exchange” and subsidizes with taxpayer dollars such purchases.
• Romney said of his plan, with its individual mandate, “exchange,” and heavy subsidies:

“If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.”

Obama and the Democrats agreed and did so.

• The far-left was so excited about RomneyCare that Sen. Ted Kennedy made a trip to be at the bill signing and was all smiles as he stood center stage.
• Despite his previous suggestion that RomneyCare is a “model for the nation”, he is now trying to use the excuse that it was OK because it’s a state plan and states experiment. But it’s wrong for government at any level to violate our basic right to liberty by forcing citizens to buy a product as the individual mandate does.
• RomneyCare has failed, increasing health care costs dramatically. Between 2006 and 2009, cumulative costs increased by $8,569,000,000, emergency room visits are up 7.2 percent, and premiums rose 6 percent, according to the Beacon Hill Institute.
• In the wake of RomneyCare, the Wall Street Journal says Massachusetts

“is now moving to impose price controls on all hospitals, doctors and other providers.”

We can expect that nationally, too, if ObamaCare isn’t repealed.

• The Wall Street Journal offers more on RomneyCare, which they call a “fatal flaw” for this candidate, here.

Cap-and-Trade

• Romney supports a global cap-and-trade scheme and involved Massachusetts in a regional cap-and-trade pact.  Romney was caught on video in New Hampshire in 2008 having this exchange with a potential voter:

Potential Voter: Do you support cap-and-trade?

Romney: I support it on a global basis

• Romney won praise from global warming profiteer Al Gore for saying, “I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and global warming that you’re seeing.”
• In 2008, Romney told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “there’s nothing wrong with dealing with global warming.”
• In 2004, as Governor of Massachusetts, Romney introduced the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan to reduce greenhouse gases. The Heartland Institute finds,

“Though mostly voluntary, some provisions of the plan are mandatory and will impose economic hardship on Massachusetts citizens.”

• Romney’s plan, much like the widely rejected Kyoto Protocol states its goals as
• SHORT-TERM: Reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2010.
• MEDIUM-TERM: Reduce GHG emissions 10% below 1990 levels by the year 2020.
• LONG-TERM: Reduce GHG emissions sufficiently to eliminate any dangerous threat to the climate; current science suggests this will require reductions as much as 75-85% below current levels.
• Having pushed carbon regulations Obama could only dream of, Romney uttered this line, which sounds eerily like what Obama would say,

“These carbon emission limits will provide real and immediate progress in the battle to improve our environment… They help us accomplish our environmental goals while protecting jobs and the economy.”

• According to Sandy Liddy Bourne of the American Legislative Exchange Council,

“The Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan can be compared to a slick advertisement with no price tag. It is packaged with the same doom and gloom rhetoric of the environmental activists and commits the state government to long-term contracts for renewable energy without the benefits of a free market check-and-balance system.”

Ethanol

• Romney makes no bones about it, he supports ethanol subsidies. “I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.”

• Romney goes so far as to support trade barriers on ethanol.

• Romney also supports energy subsidies in general, unequivocally stating in his 2008 campaign platform a need for a “dramatic” increase in “federal spending on research, development, and demonstration projects that hold promise for diversifying our energy supply.”

Taxes

• Romney refused to support the Bush tax cuts in 2003.

• Romney strongly opposes the pro-growth Flat Tax. So much so that he, as a “concerned citizen” ran a newspaper ad opposing it. He said, “I’m probably not going to be recommending throwing out the code and starting over” and says the flat tax is “unfair.”

• In 2002, while Romney was running for governor, limited government activists in Massachusetts were supporting Ballot Question 1 to eliminate he state income tax. Forty five percent of the voters supported eliminating the tax, Romney opposed eliminating it.

• When Romney ran for governor in 2002, he refused to sign a no-tax pledge.

“I’m not intending to, at this stage, sign a document which would prevent me from being able to look specifically at the revenue needs of the Commonwealth.”

• Romney enacted $432 million in fee hikes and $300 million in higher taxes as governor of Massachusetts.

• In a recent “Fiscal Policy Report Card” on governors, The Cato Institute, gave him a “C.” As far as the image Romney cultivates as “a governor who stood by a no-new-taxes pledge,” Cato called it “mostly a myth.” As evidence, they cited the hefty fee increases and business tax hikes achieved through the closing of loopholes.

• Romney proposed a tax shift that would have increased taxes on SUVs.

• Romney instituted a 2-cent-per-gallon increase on a special gasoline fee that takes in $60 million per year.

Spending

• As Governor, Romney proposed a budget in 2007 that was an outrageous 8.5 percent higher than the one he proposed the year before.

• Romney, despite calls from many fiscal conservatives to keep everything on the table when looking for spending cuts, recently stated that “I’m not going to cut the defense spending.”

• Romney parroted discredited Keynesian economic thinking when he wrote in No Apology,

“The ‘all-Democrat’ stimulus that was passed in early 2009 will accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery.”

• Romney sounds a lot like Obama when he says in an op-ed to what was surely a fawning New York Times audience,

I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today.

The Wall Street Bailout

• Romney supports the Wall Street Bailout/TARP program.  In his book No Apology he says:

Secretary [Hank] Paulson’s TARP prevented a systemic collapse of the national financial system.

It was intended to prevent a run on virtually every bank and financial institution in the country.

Had we not taken action, you could have seen a real devastation.

• Romney reaffirmed this position in 2009 saying, “I believe that it was necessary to prevent a cascade of bank collapses.”

More Mitt, More Problems

• Romney supports federal involvement in education, long held by constitutional conservatives as a state prerogative, offering his support for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind law. In a 2008 debate, Romney stated, “I supported No Child Left Behind, still do.”

• Romney ran on raising the minimum wage and putting in place automatic increases by indexing it to inflation.

• Romney signed in to law a smoking ban.

• Romney thinks it’s OK for companies to ask for bailouts, stating in a New York Times op-ed about the auto bailout, “It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition”

• In April 2009, Romney told The Hill newspaper that:

“We as Republicans misspeak when we say we don’t like regulation. We like modern, up-to-date dynamic regulation that is regularly reviewed, streamlined, modernized and effective.”

• On Neal Cavuto on January 28 2010, Romney supported the reappointment of Ben Bernanke to chairman of the Federal Reserve.

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Republican Party Dream Candidate

by Jim Cox and James W. Harris

The Republican Party is desperately seeking a candidate who can unseat Barack Obama.

What qualifications would the ideal candidate have? How about these?

1. He should bring to mind popular past Republican presidents and leaders, to prove his authenticity and excite the Republican base.
2. At the same time, he should be able to win the support of a large number of Independents and
   disaffected Democrats.
3. He must provide a sharp and positive contrast to Obama. The country is souring on Obama – polls show him at all-time lows. Obama’s youth, once appealing to voters as freshness, is now
   looking more and more like inexperience and uncertainty. A mature GOP candidate, with successful experience inside and outside of politics, would provide a sharp and appealing contrast.
4. He must have a solid record of foresight on the economy. As in past elections, the phrase “It’s the
   economy, stupid” may decide the election.
5. His message should excite and motivate the increasing number of voters looking for a limited
   government, pro-Constitution candidate.
6. Above all, of course, the candidate must have a genuine shot at beating Barack Obama.

We have such a candidate before us – Ron Paul. Consider the following:

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Atlas Is Sorta Shrugging

by Victor Davis Hanson – PAJAMASMEDIA

“They Did It!”

The president just concluded a frenzied “jobs” bus tour to explain why unemployment is at 9.1% — after borrowing nearly $5 trillion in stimulus the last three years. You know the usual suspects responsible for our, not his, malaise: George Bush did it; the Republican obstructionists in the Congress who were wary of approving another $2 trillion in debt did it; the Tea Party did it; Standard and Poor’s did it; the Japanese earthquake did it; the Japanese tsunami and nuclear accidents did it; the Middle East unrest did it; the European debt crisis did it; new technology like ATM machines did it. Obama has cited these culprits and many more — though never either himself or his advisors who took a weak recovery and turned it into a near recession.

Where Are They Now?

Unofficial and sometimes presidential economic advisor Paul Krugman is increasingly petulant, blaming too little borrowing for the dismal 9.1% unemployment rate, some two years after the recession that began in December 2007 “officially” ended in June 2009. (Note the Zeno-like paradox of too much never being quite enough.) Remember the presidential advisors  – Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers – who, in the euphoria of the hope and change election sweep of November 2008, advocated a World War II-like new level of federal indebtedness. They are now quietly back on Wall Street, back to their tenured academic perches, or considering departure. They remain either mum or in op-eds visibly confused about why a strong recovery did not follow a strong recession in the manner of all other post-war ups and downs.

So there seems to be genuine confusion — and fear — on the part of leftist economic advisors that the capitalist engine that fuels their redistributive government for some unknown reason is not running on all cylinders and thus cannot quite continue to make the money that even capitalism’s critics count on for support. It reminds me of the please, please letters alumni receive when annual giving to their almae matres is down, and the left-wing president’s mega-salary and the center for gender studies are possibly imperiled.

Start Hiring, Stupid!

Both the president and his supporters fault supposedly self-interested corporations and “the rich” who sit on “trillions of dollars” in capital and won’t hire new workers or make massive purchases of equipment. They are the real cause of record budget deficits, unsustainable aggregate debt, credit downgrading, high unemployment, a nose-diving stock market, sluggish growth, near-zero interest rates, explosive trade deficits, sky-high energy and food prices, a still ruined housing market, and a general fear of new hyperinflation.

There is some truth to Obama’s screed, though not quite in the way he thinks. So let me be perfectly clear and make no mistake about it and let’s be honest: The employers of America have taken a time out, despite the fact that now might be a good time to gear up for the inevitable recovery. They haven’t let the resting world fall entirely from their broad shoulders, but they have bent over for a bit and the globe is tottering on their upper arms.

Consider why after nearly three years our tired Atlas is starting to slouch.

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Wonderful Animated Video: Ron Paul 2012

Obama Finally has a Primary Challenger: Ron Paul

Well, not exactly. But disaffected Democrats can take heart.  There is a candidate who supports many of their same views and has a history of being a thoughtful, smart, and honest individual.  I’m speaking, of course, of Congressman Ron Paul.

While it’s true that Dr. Paul is running as a Republican, that shouldn’t scare Democrats away, and I’ll tell you why.

• Ron Paul wants to “give peace a chance”, by returning our troops home and ending all six wars in which the United States is currently engaged.  In fact, he has “joined six Republican and three Democrat colleagues to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its illegal war against Libya.”  These six wars are listed below with links to articles describing the conflicts.

1. Iraq
2. Afghanistan
3. Libya
4. Pakistan
5. Yemen
6. Somalia

• Then there is the drug war.  This headline says a lot; Obama, Calderon Pledge Cooperation On Drug Wars.  Especially when you realize that a Mexican government report showed more than 22,700 deaths in a little over a three-year period were the direct result of the drug war.

Dr. Paul’s views on this subject are well addressed in the YouTube video: The War On Drugs: Ron Paul versus Barack Obama.

• Ron Paul is firmly against corporatism.

• If you believe that Americans who don’t pay income tax are not being taxed, think again.  The policies of the Federal Reserve since its inception in 1913 have devalued the dollar by 95% via the Fed’s massive issuance of money and credit.  The resulting inflation is a direct tax on the poor and middle class, when their money becomes worth less as prices rise.  The rich can afford the higher prices, but the rest of the citizenry are profoundly affected.

•  Ron Paul predicted the collapse of the housing bubble and offered solutions at least five years before it occurred, and is the only candidate who predicted the financial meltdown and our ongoing recession years in advance.

• Ron Paul is strong advocate of civil liberties and is against the Patriot Act and Real ID Act.

So what is a Democrat, who finds these issues important, to do?  First of all, don’t take my word for it, do your own research and compare Dr. Paul’s words to his actions, and then do the same for President Obama.  I’m confident you will be surprised at what you find.  You can find out more about Ron Paul’s views on the issues by visiting his campaign web site. http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/

If you are convinced that Ron Paul is the only candidate in either party who can “walk the talk”, then you will need to vote for Dr. Paul in the GOP Primary in your state in 2012 as a “crossover voter”.  This web site describes crossover voting, and lists the states with open and closed primary elections.  In the closed primary states, you would need to register as a Republican in order to vote in their primary.  Be sure to check your state’s voter registration deadlines and rules.

Ron Paul stacks up well in recent polls against President Obama; however, his biggest challenge will be in winning the Republican Primary nomination.  That’s why it is imperative that you vote in the GOP Primary in order to see a Ron Paul vs. Barack Obama matchup in the general election.  It’s historically proven that third-party candidates do not perform well in general elections, so anticipating a Ron Paul third party run isn’t the answer to putting him into the White House.

Finally, if you like what you find out about Congressman Paul, but you are frightened of being seen standing in line to vote at the GOP Primary, just remember this: if your fellow Democrat neighbor sees you in line, they are likely to be standing in the same line.