Obviously, this campaign was one of the most monumental Presidential campaigns in history with regard to its long-term political impact. It is a hugely important development in the campaign for liberty, as the campaign raised more than $30 million in total, received 2nd and 3rd place results in many caucuses with a competitive field, and won more than 1 million Republican primary and caucus votes, beating the total of any Libertarian Party candidate in any previous general election. All, while many in the Party actively worked against him to demean him and shut him out. He was able to get the libertarian message across to millions more with unprecedented access to mainstream media coverage and revolutionary use of the internet. He was able to accomplish in just a few months what the Libertarian Party hasn't been able to accomplish in almost four decades.
Personally, this campaign was my re-engagement with politics. I was involved in Republican races in 2002 and 2004, volunteering for the Elizabeth Dole for US Senate and interning for (very regrettably) the Bush campaign in 2004. It was a good education in political campaigning, as I canvassed for both Dole and Bush and phone-banked for Bush, as well. But I have regretted working for both massively over time. I knew I was libertarian in my views during then, but I was at that point "politically pragmatic" and thought, since the Democrats were offering no sound alternative on a number of issues where I was upset with Bush (Iraq, civil liberties, drugs, spending, corporate welfare, etc.), I decided to hold my nose and support the guy I thought was slightly better. That turned into quite a very regrettable mistake.
The issue that really tipped the iceberg for me was the steroids issue that was brought up in early 2005, when the House Government Reform Committee (not really sure what this has to do with juice) conducted witch hunts against Major League Baseball on the issue and went way beyond the proper role of government. The fact is that people have the right to put in their bodies what they wish and accept the consequences, and if we don't like the influence of people doing it on kids, then it is the responsibility of families to EDUCATE their own children about the issue and why they shouldn't do it, not the government's responsibility to conduct an expensive and completely ineffective war will have no hope of ridding steroids and will violate our civil liberties and right to consume what we want. An at the time Freshmen North Carolina Republican Congressman, Patrick McHenry, made political use of the issue to get his name out to a national audience by grilling Commissioner Bud Selig on live t.v. in what was a completely shameful display. A couple of months later, he was the keynote speaker at the North Carolina Federation of College Republicans Spring Convention in 2005. I simply hated the speech, and I couldn't stand the hypocrisy in his comments, making mention of "individual liberty" and "limited government" and then stating that it was the responsibility of government to pervasively violate both principles. I came to the conclusion during that speech that I just could not support the Republican Party in the direction it was going under George W. Bush, and when I got home, I immediately changed my registration from Republican to Libertarian. After the Libertarian Party was de-registered by the North Carolina State Board of Elections, I basically quit on politics altogether and had lost hope.
Ron Paul gave me hope again. I had known of him for quite a while dating back to Freshman year of High School, when I first started thinking about and coming to libertarianism, and he became a hero of mine. At the beginning of the cycle, I was very interested in Chuck Hagel, who was making rumblings at the time about running and was an anti-war, demonstrably fiscally conservative and federalist Republican, and he is a terrific man who I could definitely have supported. When I first heard that Ron was running, I was immediately very interested and enthusiastic, but I wanted to see where the campaign got. And then, during the South Carolina debate, he had the courage to tell the truth about 9/11 and our foreign policy, and when I first heard his statement on the radio the next morning, I said to myself, "I have to get into this." I started the Students for Ron Paul Chapter at UNC, and we built a large group, with over 200 listed members. About 10-15 were active, but that was a good group, and we were 2nd only to the Students for Barack Obama on campus among Presidential candidates. We rounded up a group of 10 people to go to South Carolina to canvass and make phone calls, and it was a great experience for everyone.
I was unbelievably surprised and heartened about the lengths to which the campaign achieved. The fundraising, the crowds, the energy, the enthusiasm, the extent to which the message has traveled in such a short time: as a libertarian, it is true inspiring. The best part of this is how he handled himself as a candidate as the campaign went on. He was attacked viciously by opponents and had his name dragged through the mud, the epitome of which was Jamie Kirchick's smear job about his newsletters, an issue that he has explained over and again and absolutely does not concord with what he has written throughout his career. Like in his 1987 book, Freedom Under Siege, written years before the nasty newsletters were published, in which he wrote:
There are times when it seems like we get our system of values from television productions. Professional wrestling is one of the few programs which started on TV in the late 1940s and now claims more viewers than ever. There are no rules, and it is associated with contrived (but unreal) violence: mockery of the referee, racism, absence of sportsmanship, yelling, screaming, and hatred. Reasonable rules of decency are totally ignored. The shows get worse every year; belts, chains, and cages are now part of the acts. Twenty wrestlers are put into a ring without a referee and a free-for-all erupts -- the more violent, the more the crowd cheers the ridiculous charade.But nonetheless, he stood firm and continued to say what truly was in heart and mind, consequences be damned. Not only is he a man with the right message, but he is a man with the right approach and the right conduct, and we in this Revolution could learn much from him in this respect.
Commencement ceremonies at the end of academic years serve as the beginning of something new while celebrating the end of the process of getting to that point. Ron Paul's exit tonight from the race is just that: a commencement. This year has been an education for all of us in the liberty movement: an education of the principles of liberty to those who have never come across them, an education in how to campaign at a grassroots level for those who have never been in politics before, an education in the way to run a campaign and in the way not to, and an education in how we conduct ourselves as we continue forward. Let us celebrate this great campaign and this great candidate who achieved unprecedented heights for libertarianism and set forth a tremendous foundation for us, as well as the beginning of the next phase. We have many more campaigns that need our support, such as the campaign I'm working on, B.J. Lawson for Congress in North Carolina's 4th District. We have some of the smartest people in America on our side, and we have the right message and principles. It's now up to us to take the baton from Ron Paul and run with it. If we stick together and stay involved, we will win when the time is right, and this time may be sooner than we think.
This Revolution continues!
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