Many Ron Paul supporters reference the movie “The Matrix”, saying they swallowed the “red pill” when they discovered Ron Paul. They mean that Ron Paul woke them up from their slobbering apathetic slumber to the reality of a country spinning away from the rule of law in its Constitution.
There is a certain amount of “baggage” that comes along with being a Ron Paulian. You will be deemed extreme. You will be called crazy. You will be labeled a conspiracy nut. The truth is secondary to the insult to these blind and naked mobs. This and other factors like scientific polling data and little main stream media attention caused mass belief that Ron Paul was “unelectable” in 2008. If we can present a “purple pill” to these blind and naked mobs, one they can swallow a bit easier than the big red one, by the time 2012 comes around Ron Paul may magically become the most electable candidate in (or out of) the race.
The first reaction is, “Ron Paul will be too old in 2012 to run again.” This may or may not be true. 2012 is only 4 years away and no matter who takes office in 2008 it is growing increasingly likely that most Americans will be worse off 4 years from now. Ron Paul is as healthy as he can be now. There is no reason to believe he won’t maintain that health for the next 4-8 years. Will the American people be willing to accept a 76 year old Presidential candidate as viable? If it gets bad enough, maybe.
Bob Barr’s campaign is becoming more active lately. He will appear on CNN tomorrow on “American Morning” which begins at 6am Eastern. The man is a media getting machine.
His campaign has released a nicely designed trifold campaign brochure ready for download. It will be available soon for preprinted purchase. Check it out on the campaign’s blog. It includes a nicely condensed page on many of his campaign positions.
Lastly, Barr announced the filing of a lawsuit in Oklahoma for ballot access.
Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr said Tuesday that he plans to file a lawsuit in federal court later this week challenging Oklahoma’s “restrictive” ballot access laws.
Barr said at a Capitol news conference that his campaign is “on track” to appear on the ballot in 49 other states, plus the District of Columbia.
“America deserves better than simply voting for the lesser of two evils,” Barr said.
UPDATE: Chuck Baldwin’s Communications Director posted a comment clarifying his position on a few of the issues. This has modified Baldwin’s overall score. Read the comments for more details.
It is now Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin’s turn to be spun through the Paul-O-Meter. So far we have rated Barack Obama, John McCain, and Bob Barr. Will Chuck Baldwin beat Bob Barr’s current high score of 88? Read on to find out.
Bob Barr continued his media onslaught of the last 24 hours and appeared on FOX News Channel on “Your World with Neil Cavuto”. Cavuto had a guest host. He asked Barr about the potential bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Video is below.
Bob Barr appeared for a short interview on FOX and Friends this morning. He was able to get in his “McBama” comment about McCain and Obama being so similar. He credits Ross Perot and Ron Paul for making the climate right for a third party candidate. Great exposure for the liberty message again!
Bob Barr appeared on CSPAN’s “Road The White House” tonight in an interview recorded on Wednesday. The interview lasts about 30 minutes and it demonstrates not only Bob Barr’s excellent liberty message, but also the CSPAN host conducting an interview how interviews should be conducted. Barr goes into details on a number of subjects including his brand of Libertarianism, Ron Paul support, Defense of Marriage, and his campaign fund raising status. This is an excellent interview leading in to his national television appearance scheduled on “FOX and Friends” tomorrow morning around 6am eastern. Available below in 4 parts.
It was a hot and sunny day in Washington DC today where estimates from 1500 (on the low end) and 8000 (on the high end) participated in the Ron Paul Revolution March and Rally. Several speakers and musical guests enthralled the freedom eager crowd.
Some of the guest speakers fell directly into the stereotypical mold of what critics view as “the Ron Paul supporter”. I guess the generalizations do come from somewhere, but like any group of freedom loving souls you will find all types.
For the most part the speeches were directly in line with the Ron Paul platform. Though for my money the best speech given today was the one by Michael Scheuer, former head of CIA’s Bin Laden unit. In an eloquent prepared speech he hit on several topics near and dear to a Ron Paul supporter’s heart drawing cheers from the crowd several times. To give you an idea of the content of his speech I uploaded a video of the last five minutes of it and it is embedded below. Unfortunately, I was unable to record the entire speech. Perhaps it will be made available by someone else soon.
Following Scheuer, Adam Kokesh from Iraq Veterans Against The War spoke with great passion firing up the crowd. Chuck Baldwin then gave a shortened speech because the schedule was running late and Ron Paul was next. Ron Paul peppered his now standard rally speech with a few new comments here and a few new jokes there. It would have been nice to hear a new speech from Dr. Paul, but it’s hard to complain when the man just goes up there and delivers his liberty message every single time.
Now a word about the crowd. I attended the “Freedom Rally” in the same exact location back on April 15th and the crowd today looked to be 3 or 4 times that size. I would estimate the turnout to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 people. However I’m no expert and there were many people coming and going and just about everyone camped out on the outskirts of the area under the trees making it extremely difficult to deduce the numbers. Even if 8000 showed up throughout the day it was a far cry from the 15,000+ that pledged to be there. That aspect made the day a bit disappointing.
That being said, the day was a wonderful experience. I stood amongst the true believing patriots and cheered for the voices and sounds of liberty. It is truly a blessing to live in a country where speaking out against those in power is not met with immediate overt violence. It is even more impressive that those anti-establishment words bounced directly off the structures where that power conducts its business. We still live in a mostly free country. We shout to others in the name of vigilance to keep it that way.
The Bob Barr campaign released a press release yesterday where Bob Barr echoes some recent words by Ron Paul regarding the value of the dollar and inflation and its relation to the cost of oil.
The problem is more than creating a tidal wave of red ink. “Artificially pushing down interest rates and directing more money into the housing industry also risks further reducing the value of the dollar,” notes Barr. “That makes everything we buy from overseas cost more, including oil. In fact, one of the reasons gasoline prices have risen so far so fast is because of the dramatic fall in the value of the dollar.”
Now listen/watch closely to Ron Paul in this video released yesterday about his questioning of Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson.
David Franke at ThirdPartyWatch called the article possibly “the most amazing article to cover the 2008 presidential campaign so far, at least to libertarians and Bob Barr supporters.” I agree with him but I’d take it a step further. I think it may one of the most positive libertarian oriented articles ever to appear in the main stream media. I may be using a bit of hyperbole when I say those words. The title alone could suggest otherwise: “The (Not So) Lunatic Fringe”.
Nathan Thornburgh in TIME magazine has written an article that should make not only Barr supporters proud, but all small and big ‘L’ libertarians proud as well. He describes how the two major parties are both moving to the mushy center and are becoming indistinguishable from one another. Meanwhile on the shoulders of Ron Paul’s massively successful Presidential campaign sits Bob Barr crying out for liberty to anyone who will listen. According to the article, people are starting to listen.
I wrote quite a long time ago (it seems like it anyway) that Ron Paul has laid the foundation for future liberty minded candidates to build upon. An article that celebrates the libertarian American spirit like this one will be read by millions. We have Ron Paul and now Bob Barr to thank for planting these seeds of freedom that may someday grow into something truly special as long as we liberty loving individuals keep watering them with our ideas, time, effort, and money.
It is now Libertarian candidate Bob Barr’s turn to be spun through the Paul-O-Meter. We rate the candidates on 20 criteria to see how closely they match up with Ron Paul on the issues. Thus far we have rated Barack Obama and John McCain. Read all about the Paul-O-Meter here.
Liberty Maven
Many Ron Paul supporters reference the movie “The Matrix”, saying they swallowed the “red pill” when they discovered Ron Paul. They mean that Ron Paul woke them up from their slobbering apathetic slumber to the reality of a country spinning away from the rule of law in its Constitution.
It was a hot and sunny day in Washington DC today where estimates from 1500 (on the low end) and 8000 (on the high end) participated in the 
