CA straw poll winner Ron Paul talks 9-11, campaign

Los Angeles – The campaign of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, who decisively won the California Republican state GOP straw poll Saturday, spent $25,000 on the effort — one his backers say displayed a “depth of support” and organizational strength for Paul in the 2012 campaign.

Paul’s commanding win gave him 44.9 percent of the 883 votes cast by attendees at the 3-day state convention at the JW Marriott Hotel here. Coming in second was Texas Gov. Rick Perry with 29.3 percent, followed by a dramatic drop-off for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 8.8 percent. Rep. Michele Bachmann came in an embarrassing fourth, with 7.7 percent. The rest of the GOP presidential pack hardly made a ripple: former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman (2 percent), former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain (1.8 percent), and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich coming in even after the pizza exec (1.7 percent).

So you support a 9/11 truther??

Paul does not believe the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were a government conspiracy and has explicitly denied being a 9/11 "truther", arguing that the issue is not a conspiracy but a failure of bureaucracy. He believes the 9/11 Commission Report's main goal was "to protect the government and to protect their ineptness—not […] to do this so they can use this as an excuse to spread the war […] Some who did want to spread the war would use it as an opportunity. But, it wasn't something that was deliberately done." He does not think the government would have staged such an attack.[72] When asked whether "9/11 was orchestrated by the government", Paul emphasized, "Absolutely not."
--Wikipedia article on Ron Paul

A guy who back stabbed Reagan in the back??

Congressman Paul was one of only four Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan against incumbent Gerald Ford and lead the Texas delegation for Reagan to the 1976 Republican National Convention. He defended Reagans Strategic Defense Initiative. The backstabbing you refer to was nothing more than a letter in which Paul criticized Reagan for not reducing the government to a "constitutional size."

And why the heck shouldn't Paul support Alan Keyes? You have a problem with Alan Keyes?

When he (Ron Paul) blamed Reagan for the deficit.

It wasn't 1984, it was 1987 -- well after Reagan's re-election and shortly before Reagan left office. And it wasn't "a stab in the back" or even about RR personally; it was a criticism of the entire Republican Party and the Reagan Administration for not delivering what they promised to the American people. It came in the form of a letter resigning from the Republican Party.

One thing that has become pretty clear about Ron Paul over the years is that he never attacks anyone personally. It's always about the issues to him and his obligation to the Constitution and to the people. If you honor that, he honors you. If you don't, he may stay your friend but he won't cover for you.

Ronald Reagan was a great president, largely because he united the people and we trusted him. That doesn't mean that he was a perfect president who honored every campaign promise to us, because he didn't.

Unfortunately, I think that Ron Paul trusted Reagan too much. And when even Ronald Reagan couldn't deliver, Ron Paul became totally disillusioned, doubting that anyone in the Republican Party ever would -- a position that most of us are only coming to now.

Problem was that to become president RR, already had to compromise by bringing (liberal, big-government, internationalist) Rockefeller Republicans into his Administration --especially in the form of George H. Bush.

Forget "neocons", the problem is that people today mistake liberal, big-government, internationalist Rockefeller Republicans for "Conservatives" -- the antithesis and virtual enemies of original Goldwater Conservatives.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.