Ron Paul's, um, problem?
Posted: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 12:10 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2008, Paul
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli
BEDFORD, N.H. --
Ron Paul says he has a problem. Others, no doubt, wish they were so lucky.
Paul began his remarks at a Politics and Eggs breakfast by saying he is constantly asked about his fundraising. Earlier in the campaign, he said, there would be occasional bursts of attention and donations, usually after debates. “Back then, a burst was $50,000,” he said. “But now, it’s sort of gotten out of control, and I don’t know what to do about it. I mean, the money just keeps coming in.”
He said there is something “significant going on,” and attributed it to the message, not the man. “It’s not about me, as much as it is about this message, and the need for it to be heard,” he said. “I’m especially excited about the young people willing to look at this and say, this is a grand idea, and this is what we need to do.”
Paul’s remarks this morning covered his core argument -- of returning to policies rooted in the principle of freedom. “If I had to summarize one word of what the campaign is all about, it’s champion the cause of freedom, and the Constitution that protects our freedom,” he said. The idea of freedom is still new in the history of the world, he said, and that it was why the U.S. was “the freest and the most prosperous.” “But something’s happening today, because everything has been undermined,” he continued. The result is a foreign policy that has America viewed as “a bully,” and a monetary policy that has led the money to borrow money “from the communists.”
Asked about nuclear power as it relates to the non-proliferation treaty, Paul turned to Iran, and claimed that it “has been a better follower” of it than the U.S. “We would never expose ourselves to what we expect other countries to do,” he said. “They have an established national right to enrich for peaceful purposes.”
He added that the NIE report showing that Iran had shut down its nuclear weapons program further shows they are within international law. “Yet we tell them they absolutely do not have this right," he said. "That is not true. We are violating the treaty when we tell them that.”
The Texas congressman was also asked, given Bush’s record, whether the country was ready to elect another Republican president. “How 'bout another Republican president from Texas,” Paul joked. “Well, I guess if it’s a different kind of Republican?”
