Paul faithful flock to Spartanburg appearance (sixteen standing ovations!)

GoUpstate.com ^ | 7/21/07 | Jason Spencer

[George W. Bush]

Paul faithful flock to Spartanburg appearance

A little-known Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for president visited Spartanburg on Saturday and seemed to arrive with all the makings of rock-star candidate for his party — despite polling low, little name recognition and a relatively small campaign staff.

Supporters call it the “Ron Paul Revolution.” You might’ve seen it on signs or T-shirts. Or MySpace.

Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Event Center — first, when he entered the room, a second one when a re-entered after doing a quick television interview and a third when he was formally introduced.

Thunderous applause also followed when he decried the Patriot Act (ovation No. 4), when he said America should never go to war without a declaration from Congress or because of a United Nations resolution (ovation Nos. 8 and 9), and when he attacked President Bush’s foreign policy and handling of the war in Iraq (ovation Nos. 11, 12 and 13).

“No nation building. No policing of the world. Peace is popular,” Paul said. “The sooner we get out of Iraq, the fewer Americans will die. And I say, it’s time to come home.”

About 400 people — half from out of state — were shoehorned into Summit Pointe for a barbecue luncheon that doubled as a fundraiser for the Spartanburg County Republican Party. The local GOP, after expenses, made an estimated $5,000 on the event.

Paul was invited to speak to the local party faithful (they numbered about 80 in the crowd) after county chairman Rick Beltram took offense at Paul’s explanation of the 9/11 attacks as “blowback” from America’s past intervention in the affairs of other countries during a GOP debate. That led to a widely distributed online tit-for-tat between Beltram and Paul supporters, and Beltram eventually invited Paul here to explain himself.

Blowback, in and of itself, was not mentioned Saturday, though Paul often alluded to it, going as far back as World War I, “which (President) Woodrow Wilson got us into unnecessarily, and drew the lines in the Middle East that we’re suffering for today.”

Beltram said he agreed with Paul on most issues except foreign policy, and that he believes the Texan converted some Upstaters to his revolution with Saturday’s speech.

“I left feeling like a hero,” Beltram said. “I got more positive comments after that event than all the other presidential events combined.”

[George W. Bush]

As with his appearances everywhere, Ron Paul is bringing excitement and the old Goldwater-Reagan message of liberty, small government, conservative principle to our voters and especially our young people.

The question isn't so much why Ron Paul is doing so well with this message as it is why the rest of the GOP so steadfastly refuses to offer it boldly, just as Ron Paul is doing with such positive results.

Maybe the rest of the GOP should stop celebrating the genius of the Chappaquiddick Killer and return to the winning message of Ronald Reagan. As Rush says, it works every time we try it.

[George W. Bush]

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Dr. Paul wins the Beltram challenge, everyone a winner at SC event

[TheZMan]

Run Fred, Run.

I’d rather not have a loony for a president, even if half the things he says actually make sense.

[cripplecreek]

My only real problem with Paul is his apparent disregard for the words of those saying they want to kill us. Their history has proven that they keep their promises to slaughter.

100 years ago they couldn’t do it unless we were there. Today they’re gaining the means to kill us at a distance and ignoring them only means our children will die at their hands.

[billbears]

“I left feeling like a hero,” Beltram said. “I got more positive comments after that event than all the other presidential events combined.”

Perhaps Rick is starting to realize there are far more non-interventionists in the Republican party than the RNC would have the media and the general public believe. Thank you Mr. Beltram for giving Rep. Paul a fair shake.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Ron Paul’s big problem is that his messages simply can’t be understood by human beings with IQ’s less than 100. And in these times, that’s about 80% of the electorate. ;)

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Who is Don Paul?

[ejonesie22]

Well put. There is not going to be 30 wooden ships sailing up the coast to let us know our enemy is near...

[federal]

Anyone who doesn’t recognize the we are at war with radical islamic fascist in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places known and unknown is a non starter in my opinion.

Dictators and mullahs in the middle east use proxies to attack the USA and western countries. Anyone who can’t understand that will never get my vote.

[VaBthang4]

WOO’OOO DREEEAAAMWEAVAH!!!

Haha...bunch of dummies.

[AppyPappy]

80 people?

[dighton]

[George W. Bush]

Ron Paul’s big problem is that his messages simply can’t be understood by human beings with IQ’s less than 100. And in these times, that’s about 80% of the electorate. ;)

I beg to differ. They were smart enough to vote for Reagan in landslides. They were smart enough to vote for the Gingrich Contract With America.

Whether Ron Paul can win the nomination or not isn't so much the question here. It's how does Ron Paul, despite his opposition to the war in Iraq, garner so much support and excitement compared to the rather lackluster appeal of the rest of the GOP field who compete for being the biggest hawk in the race.

When we were excluded in Iowa, the rest of the candidates had 600 bored supporters and our rally drew in 1200 very excited RP supporters. The media pretended it was because we offered free hot dogs.

When people show up in sizable numbers everywhere Dr. Paul appears, many traveling hundreds of miles, the GOP just ignores that appeal.

When Ron Paul visits Google, opposes their Net Neutrality stance, gets more attention and video replays in only three days at YouTube's Google presidential site, beating out McCain's video and Hitlery's despite theirs having been up for months, and has to hold a second packed fundraiser that night in Silicon Valley, everyone just pretends it doesn't mean anything.

When young people are excited all over the internet by RP's message, even in socialist bastions in places like Belgium and Germany where there are chapters of RP supporters, somehow, it just gets ignored.

Now, Ron Paul packs them in in a South Carolina event, raises $5000 for the local country GOP and makes everyone, including the formerly opposing county GOP chairman, feel like a winner with his message.

Just what is wrong with the magic of that old Reagan message anyway?

[George W. Bush]

Dictators and mullahs in the middle east use proxies to attack the USA and western countries.

Just as al-Qaeda uses our presence on the holy land of Saudi Arabia to recruit Saudis and North Africans to travel via Damascus to kill our soldiers and slaughter the Iraqis.

Apparently, when the Muslims grovel five times a day to their black meteorite in Mecca, they don't like to think of our military in close proximity. Especially an American military with women not in burqas and with actual Jews in our military present on Saudi territory.

This is why we had to withdraw from our Saudi bases for months prior to the invasion. Our presence was helping terrorist recruiting.

And the Wahabbists of Saudi Arabia are not our friends. That is why 16 of 19 of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi, just as Osama is. And the Saudis are still funding terrorism.

Whether you accept Ron Paul's (and the CIA's and the 9/11 Study Group and the 9/11 Commision's) conclusions on these matters, you should at least consider the merits of the argument.

Foreign military presence in the Mideast helps the radical imams recruit followers and declare jihad. This has been a constant in any military presence in the Mideast (American, British, French, etc.). It is especially provocative for our troops to be near their shrines in any of the Arab countries but especially in Saudi Arabia, the homeland of their barbaric moon-god cult.

[cripplecreek]

Personally I fail to see how the world will have improved after Iran nukes Israel and intimidates the rest of the mideast into allowing Iran to control the flow of oil.

I’ve got a bit of an isolationist bent myself but simply looking the other way is insanity.

[txrangerette]

So Ronald Reagan was against any US troops in Saudi Arabia especially including any jews, so as not to rile them up and create terrorists?? News to me. So if Ronald Reagan could speak to us today he would endorse Ron Paul, eh?? Including the part about let’s not be over there in their countries and/or do anything that offends them or riles them up to terrorize us. I don’t think Ronald Reagan would. Why don’t you ask his son, Michael? Got the guts? Tell you what. I don’t think you belong here. That’s my view.

[italianquaker]

As always there should be a paulette buffon alert on these threads

[BlackElk]

Get as excited as you want to over your beloved paleoPaulie the Wonder Wimp. Fall asleep at night when you have difficulty by counting imaginary Marines fleeing over a fence from Iraq with paleoPaulie beckoning them. Hallucinate that paleoPaulie and his followers might ever be competent to run our country. Imagine if you will that paleoPaulie is anything other than a mouthpiece for our nation's enemies.

BUT PUHLEEEEEEZE refrain from imagining even privately much less in public that paleoPaulie is anything vaguely resembling Ronaldus Maximus. Our enemies generally refrained from attacking America while Ronaldus Maximus was president because he gave them every reason to believe that he and we were to be feared by our enemies. PaleoPaulie is part and parcel of our enemies. And, no, it does not matter that paleoPaulie endorsed Reagan in 1976 because as Reagan said of Birchers in California in the 1960s: "They may endorse me but I don't endorse them." Reagan is entitled to the fine reputation he earned and the continuing dishonesty of suggesting that paleoPaulie's foreign policy of "flee in terror" has anything to do with the finest president of our lifetimes is inexcusable.

Before El Ron Paul ran for president, he forgot that he needed to have surgery implanting steel rods in his wrists, an actual backbone and, of course, a whole brain transplant. For starters......

What will you do with your spare time after we hang the Wonder Wimp by his thumbs in next years' primaries? Has he broken above 1% in any poll yet that is done by a reputable pollster polling random voters? Remember: not those on line polls or their equivalents where you and his little platoon can join with leftist moonbats, moveon.org members, McGovern lovers, Howard Yeeeeargh Dean's family members, et al., each voting a couple of hundred times to make the wimp look almost vaguely memorable.

[DreamsofPolycarp]

As always there should be a paulette buffon alert on these threads

You are filling that role quite nicely, I should think. Are you getting tired of it or something?

[MeanWestTexan]

Ronald Reagan was pretty openly hostile to Ron Paul, especially after Paul and the other cowards and/or anti-semites got together with the Democrats to betray Israel and force our retreat from Lebanon.