Who is Ron Paul?
Ron Paul was born in 1935 and is a physician who once represented Texas in Congress as a Republican. He grew up in Pittsburgh, took his medical degree at Duke, served in the Air Force as a flight surgeon, and then delivered babies in Texas. His House service came in three separate stints between 1976 and 2013. As the Libertarian nominee for president in 1988 he finished third with roughly half a percent of the vote. He also went after the Republican nomination twice, in 2008 and 2012. Since leaving Congress in 2013 he has written a weekly column, co-hosted an online show, and started a peace-focused institute.
Political views
- Reads the Constitution as a tool for holding Washington back, and says schooling and much else should be left to the states.Source: presidency.ucsb.edu
- Takes his economics from the Austrian School, wants the Federal Reserve audited and ended, and has argued for going back to gold.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Says spending in Washington could be cut enough to end the personal income tax altogether.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Advocates staying out of foreign conflicts, spoke against the Iraq war, and would take the US out of the UN and NATO.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- One of only three House Republicans who voted no on the Patriot Act, and an opponent of the federal drug war.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Believes life starts at conception, and supported a bill that would send abortion law back to the states.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Calls for firmer border control, no amnesty, and no automatic citizenship for the children of people living in the country illegally.Source: en.wikipedia.org
Legacy
Fans say Paul won libertarian ideas a young following through his 2008 and 2012 runs, brought doubts about the Federal Reserve into the mainstream, and pointed the way to the Tea Party. His son, Rand, became a senator. Critics call his aims, like closing the central bank and leaving NATO, impractical, and some objected to his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In late 2011, newsletters published under his name decades earlier drew fresh attention for racist and homophobic passages. He had said in 2001 that he did not write them, and in 2011 he disowned what they said. Staff from his 2012 run were later convicted in a case about money paid to an Iowa state senator in return for his backing.
In their own words
“The government should be providing a sound currency; they should enforce contracts.”