Ron Paul Raises $500k$1 Million Dollars Online In ThreeSix Days!

This is amazing. I've never seen this many spammers sending money in for a political race in the history of campaigns. Ron Paul has raised over $500k$1 million dollars online in just the last six days. The Paulbots are cloning themselves at a rapid rate, LOL. This is what happens when you have a message that resonates with people who are fed up with business as usual in this country. Right now some hack GOP consultants are trying to figure out how the Paul campaign is acheiving these results, but they will never come to the conclusion that their guys' message is not resonating.

Update On My Sister

My sister Amy is cancer free now according to her latest PET scan. It is great news. She gave a speech the other day at San Francisco City hall to city and county employees on charitable donation options. The topic was about her journey the last six months of dealing with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Here it is uncensored. BTW, here is a link to her blog, I Choose Hope

Hi all, hope you're having a good weekend. Since some of you have asked to hear the speech I gave on Thursday, I'm adding it here. It is a long read...but I hope you enjoy it.

I’d like to thank the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for inviting me here to speak to you today. My story is relatively new…

On Monday, March 5th, 2007, I heard words from the doctor that no one ever wants to hear. “You have cancer.” The doctor was calling with my CT scan results and said, “You should come in to the office today.” I knew it wasn’t good news if I had to go in. Like the principal ever calls you in the office for being a really good student. You just know it is trouble.

I really didn’t think it was possible that my nagging little cough could actually be cancer. Cancer? No way. Seriously, not a chance. I liked the other possibilities much better: acid reflux, bronchitis, allergies, or asthma. I’m young and healthy. I don’t smoke. There is no history of cancer in my family. I eat pretty good food and drink wine occasionally. Other people get cancer. Not me. I hear about friends of friends getting cancer. I watch specials on Dateline of people that have cancer. Really old people get cancer. Smokers get cancer. But there it was, staring me right in the face and waving hello. It was cancer. I wanted to close the door and make it go away. Pretend we never made eye contact.

That day was surreal. I figured I would leave my primary care physician’s office and head straight to the hospital for a biopsy, and start treatment later that week. By Friday at the latest. Cancer is serious, right? It would all move quickly, and I would be better in no time. I would suddenly be a VIP at the doctor’s office, and the red carpet would be rolled out. I would arrive to the hospital and someone would be greeting me in the parking lot, waving me in… “Hey Amy! Over here, we heard you were coming!” Not quite the case. It took a few days to even get an appointment with an oncologist. Wait, what? I am going to have an oncologist? Me?

Later that week, I arrived to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and made my way to the Radiation and Chemotherapy wing. It was an out of body experience. The patients in the lobby probably all had cancer. I made awkward eye contact with some of them. It felt like arriving at county jail to serve a sentence for a crime I did not commit. I wanted to ask them, “What are you in for?” There were nice baskets of beanies and scarves for people to take.

I was with my friend Jillian. Thankfully, she was there to help lighten the mood. She made jokes like, “You really won the cancer lottery, Amy.” I said, “Cancer lottery??” She said, “Yeah, I was researching Hodgkins disease and it has great odds of survival. So, you’ve gotten the best kind!” The best kind. Lucky me. Was there really such a thing as good cancer?

My name was called. I went in the exam room and put on my first of many paper gowns. I sat on the exam table waiting for my oncologist to come in. Minutes later, she walked in. I was shocked. She was my age. Thirty five. Wow. I expected her to be much older. And for her to be a him. It was the first cancer stereotype that was broken for me. A young woman doctor is going to save my life. How cool.
From the morning of March 5th, I never felt like my life was going to be ending anytime soon. It wasn’t possible that it could be the end. When faced with the finish line earlier than expected, there was no choice but to turn around and run the other way. Cancer may have knocked at my door, but I wasn’t going to let it in. Seeing it through the peek hole was enough for me to know I couldn’t let it in to stay.

Dr. Priya began to outline the facts for me. Percentages, odds, risks, side effects, treatment protocol… We reviewed my scans and she showed me what cancer looked like. I first pointed at something that I thought looked really bad, “Oh no, what is that big thing?” She said, “That is your aorta. That is a good thing.” After that point, I didn’t make any more assumptions about pictures of my insides. I became a student of Dr. Priya and just listened. Jillian diligently took notes while I asked Dr. Priya questions that ranged from “Am I dying right now?” to “Will I still be able to have kids?” and to the simplest of questions like “Am I going to lose my hair?” She put her hand on my hand, looked me squarely in the eye, nodded her head, and said, “Yes, you’re going to lose your hair.”

Well, that did it. I burst in to tears. Finally, there were the tears I was expecting. I seemed to be comfortable with the medical and scientific facts. But losing my hair? Noooo! Not my hair. I said “But my hair is my X!”

I left the doctor that morning and drove home. I began to think about losing my hair. I was consumed with the fact that I would lose my hair. Never mind that I had Stage III non-Hodgkins lymphoma invading my body, I was going to be bald. My life was quickly spiraling out of control.

Quick. Get some control back. How can I get some control back? I decided to throw a party. If I was going to lose my hair, I wanted to turn it in to something positive. Invite all of my friends and family … have some good food and drinks … dance and listen to great music … and have my head shaved. Then the idea kept on growing. I was really getting in to it. Let’s get some people to donate some cool stuff and have a silent auction to raise money for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I’m clearly not the only one experiencing a lymphoma diagnosis, so let’s raise some money for a charity that I believe in.

Oh yeah, sidebar: I first joined Team in Training in January 2000 to run a marathon. I wanted to complete a marathon before I turned 30. If Oprah could complete a marathon, so could I. I raised over $5,000 with relative ease. I ended up injured before the race, so I never completed that marathon. But, I decided to try again a year later. I signed up, raised another $5,000 and completed the Anchorage marathon in June, 2001. Three weeks after my 30th birthday. It was such a great experience with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, that I did it again two years later. Another $5,000 for the charity and another marathon under my belt. Honolulu was a blast.

Back to the day in the doctor’s office, with Jillian, the one that told me I had won the cancer lottery. She says, “Wow, what karma you have. Think about all of that money you have raised for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!”

I was completely puzzled. “Huh? Train for the marathon, raise money for the cause, and then…get the disease? If that is the karma I have, I will never raise money for a cancer charity again!!”

She explained, “No, think of how you will benefit as a patient now. The money you have raised for them has helped them to advance research, take care of patients, and offer support that you will be needing.”
She was right. I had to get Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in on my party idea. I called the San Francisco chapter and the red carpet was immediately rolled out. There it was! The cancer patient red carpet I was dreaming about. It was like when you’re in a really long line at a bar and the bouncer calls you to the front of the line and lets you in – and then waives the cover charge. I was being treated like a cancer VIP. Everyone I spoke with started the conversation with “How are you feeling, Amy?” They cared. They were compassionate. They were respectful of my situation and sensitive to my feelings. And mostly, they were thankful for me to reach out to them. It is like they want to be able to do their job, which is to help people like me.

And let me be clear, I was 1,000 times more thankful that they were there for me to call. Within a few hours, they put me in touch with a woman in the East Bay that was a survivor of exactly what I had. Right down to the specific type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma of which there are around 30. It was such a welcome for me to speak with someone that knew and understood what I was experiencing. My family and friends were all being wonderfully supportive, but I really could not take one more person telling me, “I know you are going to beat this.” I needed someone that truly understood my feelings of fear and anxiety. Someone that had walked in the shoes I was about to put on. Hearing her say, “I know what you are feeling right now” was a tremendous comfort. She really did know. And she was OK. She lived through it all. The baldness, the medicine, the range of emotions, the reality that this can happen to anyone. And it did happen to anyone. I was suddenly ‘anyone’.

My head shaving party was the best night of my life. For real. What could have been a depressing day at the hair salon was turned in to an evening of celebrating life with all of my closest friends and my dear family. Friends from all over even flew in for it. I felt inspired and proud that I had such strong support from my team. This team was going to help me get through what was about be the most difficult and challenging chapter of my life. About 100 of us packed in to The Horseshoe Tavern on Chestnut. If you have been there, you know it is a small place. We set up a silent auction and had items donated from all over: a signed pin flag from the PGA Championship was donated by Tiger Woods; concert tickets with VIP access were donated by the Dave Matthews Band; my employer donated 2 tickets to the 2008 Grammy’s … I quickly learned that people really want to give. We just get busy in life, and forget to give to others. It isn’t that we do not want to, we just need to be reminded. We raised over $20,000 that evening, and the money is still coming in. I have even received donations from complete strangers that have read my internet blog about my journey with cancer. That evening, 18 of my male friends and family all stepped up and let me shave their heads too. It was a blast. We all laughed, we all cried. The honor of shaving my head went to my own little sister. The person that donated the most money that evening received the honor, and she got her employer to donate $5,000. We climbed up on the pool table, everyone in the room cheered, I tilted my head back and she shaved it. It was a lot less traumatizing for me once it was actually over. The night was about celebrating life and raising money for a great cause. Some of us just happened to shave our heads, too.

I will never say that getting cancer is a good thing. It isn’t. It is a terrible thing to have to experience. But what I will say, is that if you look hard enough, there are silver linings to it all. Organizations like the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society help make the experience a little bit easier. They relieve some of the burdens that patients are facing. They make a difference.

I am excited to share I was declared in full and complete remission after only two cycles of chemotherapy. May 7th was the day I received that news, and I cried, and cried, and cried the happiest tears of my life. I spent the rest of my summer in Palo Alto, finishing up my chemotherapy and a then a month of daily radiation treatments. Words cannot describe how difficult this was, physically and mentally.

But, we have a choice in every thing we face. Hope, or despair. I choose hope. I will choose hope for the rest of my life. I hope you do too.

Thank you very much for your time today.

It gives me tears reading it. If anyone still wants to donate to the Lymphoma Society, you can do so here. Lynn's raised almost $3k so far for her Team in Training San Francisco Marathon and we still are a month out.

What Do You Do For A Living Allan?

The title of this post is the question I get asked all the time when go to political or social gatherings. I am a commodity/futures broker. I buy and sell commodity/futures contracts all day long for different clients all over the country. The best analogy I've ever come up with is to ask people if they've seen the famous 1983 comedy movie "Trading Places" with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. I don't actually work as a floor broker in the pit because you would have to live in Chicago or New York for that. I work out of my office here in Huntington Beach, California taking orders & placing trades for people. Here is a clip from the last few minutes of the movie for your enjoyment.

An Evening With RNC Chairman Mike Duncan

Where to begin about tonight down at the posh St Regis Resort. Lynn and I were invited to an event earlier tonight with RNC Co-Chairman Mike Duncan. I was already worried about next year's Presidential election and after tonight I'm ready to push the panic button after hearing what Chairman Duncan and the RNC have planned for the party apparatus next year. Let me preface my next comments by saying that I like the Republican Party. I am a member of said party, but I consider myself a conservative libertarian activist before being a Republican. Mr Duncan needs to get out a lot more and talk to grassroots activists about what is happening in the country today. A couple of questions were directed to him about illegal immigration. His solution to the problem was everything that President Bush has been trying to shove down our throat...i.e guest workers, a technological fence, and no real physical barrier fence. He mentioned he had spoken with our Governor earlier in the day about the health care issue and said Arnold had some interesting solutions to solve those problems. Thank god Mimi Walters was in the room and spoke up about that. She basically told the Chairman that Arnold was full of crap...that Arnold was not working with Republicans on health care at all on the issue. The room erupted in applause. Did I mention that Chairman Duncan needs to get out of his office more? Oh yeah I did already. The best question of the night was about the Patriot Act. A fellow Ron Paul activist that was there asked the Chairman about the Patriot Act. I swear you could have a heard a pin drop after the question was asked. I'm guessing he wasn't expecting this chin music from our type of group. He dodged the question, said his goodbyes, and then was hustled into another room. The event was over. It was a fun night. I was on my best behavior. The night reinforced my notion of sending political contributions to good candidates and the local party apparatus only. The RNC is still clue free on why we lost last year.

The Nightmare Dream Act

I've been posting a lot lately about Ron Paul and our nation's precarious financial situation, but don't think I'm not following the latest news coming out of DC about the so called Dream Act(which is actually more like a nightmare). After getting routed in their battle to give amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens, the open border lobby is trying to sneak a provision onto a Defense Appropriations Bill that would be a Trojan horse for unlimited amounts of illegal aliens to get citizenship through a big loophole. No dice guys. You lost. Get over it. We are not doing any more amnesty bills.

Ron Paul Owns Ben Bernanke

Today the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben "helicopter" Bernanke went to Capital Hill to testify before the Financial Services Committee. Once again he got owned by Congressman Paul. Watch for yourselves:

Thanks Ben

I want to thank the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for throwing gasoline on the inflation fire. He cut the fed funds rate by a half point the other day and has absolutely sent the US dollar into a tailspin and rocketed the price of gold & silver. Did anyone buy gold or silver lately? Gold's going to hit $1000/ounce in the very near future. I see silver hitting $20/ounce in the same time frame. Thank you very much Ben. You're making me and my clients happy people.

Alan Greenspan Vs. Ron Paul

Over the years, some of the most interesting dialog during former fed chairman Alan Greenspan's reign was between him and Congressman Paul in the Financial Services Committee. It was interesting because Mr Greenspan was an Ayn Rand devotee and sound money advocating economist before he became fed chairman. In fact this is what he said back in 1967 in relation to a gold standard...

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect
savings from confiscation through inflation. ... This is the shabby
secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending
is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the
way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property
rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the
statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."

So we have that quote to digest. Over the next few years, Mr. Greenspan was seduced by the power of the fiat money system. I'd compare him to a fictional young Anakin Skywalker being seduced by the dark side of the force. Mr. Greenspan sold his soul and was handsomely rewarded with the chaimanship of the all powerful Federal Reserve System.

So fast forward to 1997 when Dr. Paul returned to Congress. He and Mr. Greenspan had some fascinating discussions about monetary policy during Mr. Greenspans once every other month in half testimony in the Financial Services Committee. Here are some of the better quotes from these exchanges...

=====

2/17/2000 — DIALOGUE ONE
(In which Ron Paul gets Greenspan to admit that the Fed has no way of knowing how much money the economy needs.)

Dr. PAUL. "My concern is what is going to happen when this bubble bursts? I think it will, unless you can reassure me. But the one specific question I have is will M3 shrink? Is that a goal of yours, to shrink M3, or is it only to withdraw some of that credit that you injected through the noncrisis of Y2K?"

Mr. GREENSPAN. "Our problem is, we used M1 at one point as the proxy for money, and it turned out to be very difficult as an indicator of any financial state. We then went to M2 and had a similar problem. … The difficulty is in defining what part of our liquidity structure is truly money. … Our measures of money have been inadequate and as a consequence of that we … have downgraded the use of the monetary aggregates for monetary policy purposes.”

Dr. PAUL. "It is hard to manage something you can’t define."

Mr. GREENSPAN. "It is not possible to manage something you cannot define."

=====

2/11/2004 — DIALOGUE TWO
(In which Ron Paul gets Greenspan to admit the Fed has ‘inordinate power.’)

Dr. PAUL. "Maybe there is too much power in the hands of those who control monetary policy, the power to create the financial bubbles, the power to maybe bring the bubble about, the power to change the value of the stock market within minutes? That to me is just an ominous power and challenges the whole concept of freedom and liberty sound money."

Dr. GREENSPAN. "Congressman, as I have said to you before, the problem you are alluding to is the conversion of a commodity standard to fiat money. We have statutorily gone onto a fiat money standard, and as a consequence of that it is inevitable that the authority, which is the producer of the money supply, will have inordinate power."

=====

7/21/2004 — DIALOGUE THREE

(In which Ron Paul gets Greenspan to admit that, in fact, successful central banks must replicate gold standard - so why not return to it?)

Dr. PAUL. "Yesterday's testimony was received in the press as you painting a pretty rosy picture of the economy. … So my question to you is, how unique do you think this period of time is that we live in and the job that you have? … Since there is no evidence that fiat money works in the long run, is there any possibility that you would entertain that, quote, we may have to address the subject of overall monetary policy not only domestically but internationally in order to restore real growth."

Mr. GREENSPAN. "Well, Congressman, you are raising the more fundamental question as to being on a commodity standard or another standard. And this issue has been debated, as you know as well as I, extensively for a significant period of time. Once you decide that a commodity standard such as the gold standard is, for whatever reasons, not acceptable in a society and you go to a fiat currency, then the question is automatically, unless you have Government endeavoring to determine the supply of the currency, it is very difficult to create what effectively the gold standard did. I think you will find, as I have indicated to you before, that most effective central banks in this fiat money period tend to be successful largely because we tend to replicate that which would probably have occurred under a commodity standard in general."

=====

Congressional Approval Rating At An All Time Low

According to a new Reuters/Zogby Poll, the approval rating for Congress is at a svelte 11%. This is an all time low for them. The Democrats won a majority last year by running on a platform to get us out of the Iraq War and because they weren't Republicans. Their rating has also suffered because of people's anxiety over the economy. As bad as this number is for them, I believe they are going to win larger majorities next year because I believe the voters are still going to put the blame for most of the mess on George W Bush. BTW, his approval is at an all time low as well...only 29% of people approve of his job performance.

Ron Paul & Mitt Romney Are Tied In New Gallop Poll

A funny thing is starting to happen. Ron Paul is starting to move up in the scientific polls. A new Gallop Poll is out showing Ron Paul with 4% and Mitt Romney with 7%. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus three points. So statistically Romney and Dr. Paul are tied. This is gonna make Romneybots like Hugh Hewitt go crazy. All of us Ron Paul internet & phone poll spammers are starting to show up in scientific polls now. Who knew. Good job fellow Paul supporters. We are really starting to make a difference.

Don't Steal....The Government Hates Competition

The title of this post is a nameplate that Congressman Paul has on his office desk. It's humorous and serious in the same breath. He's refering to the Federal Reserve printing money out of thin air therefore stealing from people the value of their money without most people giving it a second thought.

Please watch this You Tube video again and send it to all your friends & family. It's titled "Stop Dreaming" Here's the link to send.

The Crowds Keep Growing For Ron Paul

Yesterday Dr. Ron Paul made a visit to Salt Lake City, the heart of Mitt Romney country. A funny thing is happening. The crowds keep growing exponentially for the message of freedom. Imagine that. I'm attaching the You Tube video of the event. I'm continually amazed at all these internet & phone poll "spammers" showing up at actual events and signing up to be part of the Ron Paul revolution.

Well Well, England Has A Bank Run On Its Hands

This is not supposed to happen in today's era of modern finance, or so we're told. It seems that Northen Rock, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, is having to deal with a real bricks & mortar bank run. Customers were forming long lines around branches of the bank this weekend.

Fears have spread over the bank's request earlier in the week for an emergency Bank of England loan amid the global credit crisis.

We also saw this happening last month to a lesser exent at Countrywide's bank branches in the US. You know there is fear in the air when people start lining up to withdrawl their life savings out of these banks. Boy its a good thing we have the Federal Reserve around to print enough money for people to feel safe(snark). Look for more of these stories in the coming months and years as the global financial system continues to melt down from the huge credit bubble created by Alan Greenspan and the Fed. Here's a four minute You Tube video of BBc coverage of the bank run.

Speaking of Mr. Greenspan, I see that Drudge has a link to an article about Mr. Greenspan where he states that the reason we went to war in Iraq was for oil. Dooooo. So Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, they didn't attack us on 9/11, but they have a lot of oil therefore we must go to war over this. We're not even getting the oil flow right anyways which was the whole reason for going to war. Oil is at an all time high the other day. The oil was also supposed to pay for this war. That hasn't happened either. Alan is not going along with his part of the script now. Maybe he wants to clear his conscience before he croaks. Who knows. It's really to bad. He used to be a sound money Barry Goldwater conservative. Sounds like it's time for him for a trip out to the woodshed to get scolded.

Ron Paul At USC

(sarcasm on)There sure seems to be a lot of phone & internet spammers in this picture. Ah they probably just photoshoped all those people into the picture to make it look like there were more of us there LOL!(sarcasm off) Pretty soon we get to spam the ballot boxes too.

Well I'm back from an afternoon at USC stumping for my Presidential candidate Ron Paul. I have a bunch of observations to share with my readers. The first is that I now know why tuition at USC costs $30k per year. What a gorgeous campus. I walked into a building to use the bathroom and it felt like I was in a brand new office building...marble floors, oak doors, etc. What I'm trying to say is that these guys don't skimp on their facilities. As for the rally itself, it was awesome. I'd estimate that we had about 1000 people crowded around Tommy Trojan in the quad area cheering on Dr. Ron Paul in the blazing summer heat. There is something about this campaign that is drawing large spontaneous crowds of people eager to hear the message of freedom. Our Irvine Meetup group sent at least 30 people to the rally from OC off our list of RSVPs, but there were probably more than that. I'll post some pictures when I get done uploading them tomorrow.

After the rally, it was off to a cocktail party fundraiser on the SC campus. I had a chance to chat w/Ron for a few minutes about how the campaign was going. The man is so energetic. I don't know how these guys keep the schedule that they do. He had four events today, four events scheduled in SF tomorrow, five events in Seattle Friday, and a full schedule Saturday in Salt Lake City. I also had a chance to speak w/Ron's right hand man and Campaign Manager Kent Snyder. Kent's keeping Ron's fundraising numbers close to the vest, but he said the fundraising for this quarter is doing great. I can't wait to hear about them on or about Oct. 15th. I thought one of the funniest moments in Ron's speech before us at the cocktail party was his story of how some political hacks had tried to infiltrate his campaign headquarters to find out what the secret is for building hundreds of spontaneous Meetup Groups. As if they could duplicate this without a great message. Memo to hacks: someone like Giuliani, McCain, Romney, or Fred Thompson will never be able to generate the passionate grassroots support like Ron has because they have a crappy message of being George W Bush clones. That ain't selling right now. Save your money you're wasting trying to duplicate a strategy that will never work for your guys.

Here a link to watch video of the rally


Here's a pic of me in the background. Fox reporter Suzanne Marques was looking for an SC student to interview after the rally and I went and got Max Ukropina from our Meetup Group who also happens to be an SC student to come over for the interview. He made it on the 10 o'clock news that night. Good job Max.


From left to right: Karl(webmaster of
ronpaulforpresident2008), Kent Snyder(Campaign Manager), Eddie Karam(Irvine Meetup member and assistant organizer), Yours truly, and Max Ukropina(Irvine Meetup member & USC student)

More pictures of the rally

Ron Paul On John Zieglar(Audio)

Ron Paul is in the Southland today and last night he was on KFI's John Zieglar Show for three segments. The interview focused heavily on foreign policy with a little talk of illegal immigration as well. Listen here.

Ron Paul Rally On USC Campus Wednesday

I will finally get a chance to step foot on the vaunted USC campus Wednesday. This is a big event for a UCLA homer like me. It is for a great cause. Ron Paul is in Los Angeles all day Wednesday. He's having a breakfast fundraiser at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena. He then moves to the SC campus for a big 3pm rally that's open to the public. After the rally, he's having a cocktail party fundraiser at Town & Gown which is on the SC campus. He finishes up the day with a $2300 plate dinner fundraiser at a house up in La Canada. This is your chance OC USC mafia to show your support for a great Presidential candidate. I look forward to finally meeting Tommy Trojan in person.

Peggy Noonan Warns Neocons In WSJ Today

I've always liked Peggy Noonan. She was one of Ronald Reagan's best speechwriters. She warned the neocons in her Wall Street Journal column today to start taking Ron Paul seriously. Here is a few choice quotes from her:

"The debate was full of fireworks about Iraq, about its essentials--the rightness of the endeavor, and what should rightly be done now. From the libertarian Ron Paul a blunt argument against the war: We never should have gone in and we should get out. 'The people who say there'll be a blood bath are the same ones who said it would be a cakewalk.... Why believe them?' His foreign policy: 'Mind our own business, bring our troops home, defend our country, defend our borders.' After Mr. Paul spoke, it seemed half the room booed, but the other applauded. When a thousand Republicans are in a room and one man of the eight on the stage takes a sharply minority viewpoint on a dramatic issue and half the room seems to cheer him, something's going on.

"Ron Paul's support isn't based on his persona, history or perceived power. What support he has comes because of his views. As he spoke, you could hear other candidates laughing in the background. They should stop giggling, and engage in a serious way."

GOP Debate

I watched the GOP debate last night in New Hampshire. It coincided with our bi weekly Irvine Ron Paul Meetup so we ended up having a debate watching party. Our group is growing fast. We have almost 250 members now.

The news from yesterday was that Fred Thompson finally announced he was joining the Presidential race. Brit Hume started off the debate asking some of the candidates how Fred Thompson would change the race. I thought Dr. Paul had the most honest answer. He believes Sen. Thompson will further dilute the vote of the people that support the Iraq War. I'm with him on that. The more the merrier. Come on in Newt. We need more pro war candidates in the mix.

Fox News did an okay job with the coverage. The moderators asked some tough questions of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. I can't wait to hear Hugh Hewitt try to spin that Romney had a good night. He looked like a deer in the headlights when a voter dressed him down about Romney equating his sons work on his campaign to men and women serving in the military. That was a great debate moment.

The most compelling moment of the debate was an exchange between Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul about the Iraq War. Gov. Huckabee thinks we should keep staying over in Iraq even though in his words "we broke it and now we own it". Dr. Paul then responded..."The American people didn't go in. A few people advising this administration, a small number of people called the neoconservatives, hijacked our foreign policy. They are responsible, not the American people". This prompted Chris Wallace to ask Dr. Paul if he gets his marching orders from Al Qaeda. What a ridiculous question, but Dr. Paul had a great answer for him. He said that "I get my marching orders from the Constitution", YES! Awesome answer.



Once again Dr. Paul was the winner of the Fox News poll of who the audience thought won the debate. He took 33%. The next closest person was Gov. Huckabee at 18%.

Quote Of The Day

I saw this quote and just had to post it. It was uttered by Mexican Presidente Felipe Calderon the other day in an interview he did railing against US immigration policy...

Mexico does not end at the border," he said. "Wherever there is a Mexican, Mexico will be there