Liberty MavenThe First Ron Paul Republican? Vern Mckinley Interview Part 2
March 31st, 2008 4:59 am | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Vern Mckinley Interview | Comment
One of the unique things about Vern Mckinley is that he saw what was broken and decided to try to fix it before Ron Paul declared his run for President. Mckinley decided to run for Congress in December of 2006. He was a Ron Paul Republican before the term even existed. It is this kind of foresight that deserves recognition and is demonstrated in this, the second part, of his interview with Liberty Maven.
The first part of the interview is available here, if you missed it.
All Liberty Maven interviews are available on the interview page.
LM: Let’s continue with one of the questions I’ve been asking the other candidates. Who is your favorite founding father and why?
Mckinley: Like most liberty-loving Virginians, Thomas Jefferson is at the top of my list. I am amazed at how many of his quotes are so timely and on-the-mark today and how prescient he was on many issues that are important to my own campaign. For example, in my discussions on our campaign website on term limits I note this gem of his: “”Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them [offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct.” This is a timeless indictment of career politicians before the concept was even known.
Obviously the fact that Jefferson was a slave owner undermines much of what he had to say in his writings and other work, but as I believe Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute once put it, this demonstrates how long-standing the practice of politicians saying one thing in their political life while practicing something completely different in their personal life, which we see examples of to this day.
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