Ron Paul Gets Double the Crowd in Iowa

By James Buchanan

According to one blog, Ron Paul spoke before a packed house with easily double the audience of the “official” Republican forum in Iowa, which had excluded Dr. Paul. A recent news article reports “Outsider Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul headlined a raucous campaign rally Saturday after a multi-candidate GOP forum in Des Moines to which the Texas congressman was not invited. An audience of more than 600 GOP activists turned out for the Paul event, held in Hy-Vee Hall next door to where six candidates addressed a subdued crowd of much the same size earlier. ‘Today we want to celebrate and we want to be very positive,’ Paul said. ‘We’re here to talk about life and liberty, and quite frankly they are inseparable.’ Paul has built a loyal following of people attracted to the politician’s libertarian stance on constitutional rights and opposition to the war in Iraq. But organizers for the forum, held by Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance, left Paul out of their lineup, citing his lack of campaign organization in Iowa. The decision sparked loud protests from Paul supporters and prompted his campaign staff to plan its own rally. During Paul’s rally, he proposed getting rid of the Internal Revenue Service, Selective Service, income tax and the Federal Reserve, and withdrawing from the United Nations. He received cheers from the audience of Iowans and supporters from other states after each point. The loudest reception came during his call for an immediate end to the war in Iraq. ‘The policy of nonintervention is the policy of the founding fathers,’ said Paul, who was one of the few Republicans who voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq. ‘Republicans would do well if they changed their position in this regard.’ ”

First of all the excuses for “not including Ron Paul” in the Iowa forum appear to change on a daily basis. The latest one is that Paul has a “lack of campaign organization” in Iowa. Well, if that’s the case, how was Paul able to attract double the audience of the “Big Five” candidates? The latest statement from Ed Failor Jr., who organized the event, was that Ron Paul was excluded from the Iowa debate because it would have made the event go on too long. (I guess we’re supposed to believe Failor’s ties to McCain had absolutely nothing to do with it.)

The two biggest issues facing America at this time are the Iraq War and the illegal alien problem. Ron Paul has called for an end to “birth-right citizenship” also known as “anchor babies.” Ron Paul has also called for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Of all the candidates, Paul is the only one who is “two for two” on these key issues. Americans have grown tired of all the overused neocon slogans, which appear targeted more for children than for adults. Keeping our troops in a shooting gallery while accomplishing nothing is NOT supporting the troops.

The Big Five candidates are trying to force us to accept an endless war in Iraq as unavoidable. The one candidate who wants to bring the troops home is belittled as a “fringe” candidate —a radical who has no chance of winning. Well, the American public wants to bring the troops home. If the Republicans run another pro-war neocon for president, it will be like the election massacre of 2006 all over again. The only chance the Republicans have is to run an anti-war candidate if they really want to win.

It’s getting pretty obvious that the powers-that-be don’t want us to elect Ron Paul. They don’t even want us to think of him as a serious candidate. They want us to think that the liberal Republican governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, and the liberal Republican ex-mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani are our only real choices for 2008. Giuliani is so pro-war, he practically foams at the mouth when defending our eternity deployment in Iraq.

Well, the American people just won a major battle over the Amnesty Bill. We were faced with a bipartisan sell out and we were able to intimidate the Senate into killing their own bill. If we can defeat the corporate big shots and elitist snobs running Washington, DC, then maybe we can pull off a similar victory with Ron Paul.

Article Source:WhiteCivilRights.com

Robert Paul says:

I spoke with my niece and she said it was great! She said it brought chills to hear the large crowd cheer. She said there was over 1000 people. The crowd was loud and excited. My Dad spoke a long time and the crowd cheered the whole time. She was with my Mom and Dad and they really appreciated the crowd. She said the other event did not have as many people and they knew we were there. I know my Dad was being interviewed after the event, but I don’t know how well the media covered the event.

Robert Paul

Go Ron Paul! (source)

Neocons Luck Out With Terrorist Distraction From Their Des Moines Disaster

Neocon Nightmare, Ron Paul filled his 1000 seat room to capacity in Des Moines as the other GOP presidential candidates at the “conservative” forum from which Paul was excluded drew just 600 leaving 200 seats empty.

The only thing they can really do now is try to rely on media silence—a task aided immensely by the terrorist attacks across the pond—and the Des Moines Register did everything it could to help the necons there, refusing to mention Paul’s capacity crowd but reporting on the flopped forum of “conservatives” next door…

Here’s the Des Moines Register “reporting” for your laughter: GOP candidates court Iowa conservatives (source)

Ron Paul Rallies Back!

Okay, so initially a joint-forum held by the Iowans for Tax Relief and Iowa Christian Alliance did not give Ron Paul (the taxpayer’s best friend and a vetted right-to-life candidate) an invitation, as would be expected and polite. But his exclusion from this rather mundane event turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the Ron Paul meetup groups inside and outside of Iowa found a cause to be motivated for. The original plan was just to have some sort of rally outside of the convention by a couple dozen Paul supporters, a way of having his presence and views be felt even though he wouldn’t be there. However, the planning accelerated, somebody rented out the Hy-Vee Hall right after the forum’s time-slot and Ron Paul found time to fit another speech into his busy schedule.

So that’s where I was today, in Iowa, supporting Ron Paul. Not only did I see the man, I saw him twice and had my picture taken with! The activities included a street rally (my throat is still sore) through Des Moines, handing out fliers to passerby leaving and entering the art fair (pretty much the only life in the city that day, besides the political events) and hearing from Ron Paul and his campaign staff.

Here is a partial video of Paul’s speech (see below). At the beginning his full sentence is “I’m happy to join you.” He said the same thing when he met a smaller group of earlier arrivals (myself included) in the parking lot at noon.

Here is the official blurb promoting this event on Paul’s blog. Paul’s efforts are strongly grass-roots oriented and that is where the bulk of the effort for this rally came from.

(btw – the forum saw only 600 attendees for six candidates, while Paul alone drew in over 1000 cheering fans, a full house)

Making history is fun. (source)

Score!!!

I just got back from the Iowa Debates and the following Ron Paul Rally. I have to disagree with you Wolf_Tracker. I’m breaking meetings up into two sections,  first The Presidential Debate. This included the Supposed front runner Romney and 5 other hopeful Republicans… they drew a crowd that was counted at around 750 people. The Hall where it was held had the seating sections broken up into groups of 100, so it was fairly easy to get accurate counts of the crowds. Of the people attending the Republican Debate, you know – the supposed audience, all of the people there that I talked to were people working/volunteering for the candidates… I didn’t meet one person not connected with a campaign, I also didn’t meet one person attending that debate that claimed to be from Iowa. That’s not to say there weren’t any concerned citizens there, just that of the dozen or so people I had conversations with out in the hall… All were affiliated with the candidates and drove in from out of state.

  Ron Paul’s rally on the other hand was filled with people from all over Iowa and the neighboring states, the 6 republican hopefuls were only able to fill 750 seats, we had over 1000 people turn up to see Ron Paul, of which I would say about 20 were volunteers for the campaign (that # includes his family members that were there). Now you might say, 1000… well that would be most of the 750 from the republican debate, plus a few hundred Ron Paul Supporters, big deal.

 After the Republican debate ended we only witnessed about 50 make their way over to Ron Paul’s rally afterward. It’s not like they would have been hard to miss, there was only about 150 feet between the door entrances, along the same wall, so it was very easy to spot the people leaving one door and making their way to the other. No wishing away the numbers that way… Ron Paul drew 1000 people on the strength of his message, and this was with only one weeks notice. The Republican Debate had been in the pipeline for months and only drew 750! Yep only a fringe candidate with no chance of winning could pull those #’s so quickly.

  Jim Guest (the Missouri State Congressman who gave an introductory speech for Ron Paul at the event) was asked (beforehand) to look into why the local media wasn’t covering the event, his contacts (at the stations?) reported back that the FCC had contacted the stations and told them in no uncertain terms not to give coverage to Ron Paul’s event. This isn’t some wild conspiracy that was on the rumor mill at the event. I was standing right next to Congressman Jim Guest while he was explaining this to someone who had asked him why the major media wasn’t here covering Ron Paul.

  I would ask you not to give up or dismiss Paul so easily, he has a dedicated following that’s growing, and if you agree with his stance I would urge you to not sit idly by in apathy, that’s exactly why the country is in such trouble, we have been complacent in letting the Republicrats choose our leaders for us. We have to let them know that we are going to take back the right to choose our own leaders… not just pick the lesser of two party evils. We’ve got to let them know that it’s going to start with this election. If we don’t, then we may have missed our last and only chance to to save our freedoms, our Liberty… and our country from total financial collapse. And I’m dead serious about that last statement. Every Taxpayer right now is on the hook for over $500,000 each in American debt, Social Security and Medicare obligations. That’s every single one of us, right now, if we stopped borrowing!!! It would take us 73 years to pay off this debt at our current taxation levels, according to USA Today.

  The current administration and both houses are on the Gravy Train, they are borrowing from foreign governments at the rate of 2 to 3 Billion Dollars a Day but even that isn’t enough to cover our spending, so the government is printing more money to cover it’s shortfall, causing the current slide in the dollar – according to Ron Paul, and He should know, He presently serves on the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs………….. (source)

* [Dr. Duke has not endorsed any political candidate running for president at this time -- Staff]