Ron Paul Third Quarter Fundraising

Stage2 said:
1) judges
2) taxes
3) healthcare
4) property rights
5) gun rights

Guliani and Thompson and pretty much any other republican are far better than hillary on these issues from a constitutional perspective.
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You're right on the judges thing, but the rest are debatable. Since this is a gun board, I'll skip right to number 5. Rudy Guiliani believes Congress should pass a law saying we must show a need for a handgun before owning one. I'm not sure where he believes Congress gets that power, but I'm assuming it is from the commerce clause, so Rudy has the usual leftistgungrabber/rightwingdrugwarrior understanding of that authority. Even if we assume Hillary has some position I would like even less, from a constitutional perspective, explain how Rudy is better than Hillary on guns. Seems to me that they have the same understanding of the commerce clause, and a view of policy which is at least similar.
 
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That's an extensive list. I don't see a great deal of difference between this list and ones I've seen for a lot of other Congressmen. And $400,000,000.00 is a pretty good haul for a Congressman who isn't in a leadership position on any committees. Quite impressive in fact.

My main point: I think Dr. Paul missed a golden opportunity to make a strong moral statement and refuse to request ANY earmarks. The fact that the money would have likely been spent elsewhere doesn't change that.
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Read the article again. The ONLY thing on that list can can even be close to any form of 'porkbarrel spending' is the shrimp farm stuff. The rest appropriates money for civil engineering stuff and disease research.

The point you're not getting is that he was given a budget to spend, and if he did not spend it, someone else would. He put that money back into his district like his constituents would want.

This would be objectionable if he had requested a raise in budget to pay for 'special projects,' but that didn't happen.
 
Surely you are not implying that I would refuse to pay? Tell ya what, lets pick a guy here and each of us send him $500...he will hold it....you ready?
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I don't need your money. I'd rather donate mine to the Ron Paul campaign than to win or lose to you.



And whats the point? Simple, if you dont have the courage of your convictions that Paul will be elected, why are we bombarded over and over with the cultlike adoration of a fringer? You arent changing minds and doing nothing more than providing evidence of Pauls fringiness and the increased lunacy of his movement.
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We must think so differently there can't be any understanding of each other. It may seem very odd to you, but I pick which candidate to support based on which one I agree with (principles, values, positions, voting record, and such). What is there to gain by supporting someone just because he or she has the best odds of winning? Is the goal to have bragging rights, "hey, my guy won, your guy lost, ha ha", even if the end results do not produce a beneficial outcome? Ron Paul may or may not win; that is a non-issue for me.

And more evidence of his cult is your own statement, viz "us".
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You figured me out. That's right: I'm a member of the pronoun cult. We believe in irrational practices such as using "us" instead of "me and other people who support..." Wait, "me" is a pronoun too. :eek: I'm so deep into this cult I can't get out.

What is even more amazing is how the man with no charisma has been able to lure so many of us into his cult :confused: Or maybe I'm just excited about how I've found a canidate who I really agree with. :rolleyes: No, I must be a victim of a cult. Time to drink some more "limit the power of central government and preserve my rights" kool-aid.
 
Read the article again. The ONLY thing on that list can even be close to any form of 'porkbarrel spending' is the shrimp farm stuff. The rest appropriates money for civil engineering stuff and disease research.

The point you're not getting is that he was given a budget to spend, and if he did not spend it, someone else would. He put that money back into his district like his constituents would want.
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No, read my reply again. I got your point perfectly. I understand that the money would have been spent anyway, whether Ron Paul requested any for his district or not, and therefore you think Ron Paul should not be criticized for the earmark requests using the money.

Again, I simply disagree with you about the nature of the spending. Much of it is indeed pork barrel spending. For example, look at the earmarked money to "study wild shrimp marketing." Those kinds of programs at the USDA are notorious pork barrel projects. And do you understand that Dr. Paul's earmark requests for highway construction in Texas include money for the Trans-Texas corridor? a.k.a. the NAFTA highway that's going to be a drug and terrorist pipeline straight into America's heartland.

Sorry, but Ron Paul's earmark requests do include a lot of pork barrel spending. If he is against such spending he shouldn't have made the requests. You're defense of him boils down to: "…well everyone else is doing it and the money was going to be spent anyway." Frankly, that's what they ALL say when they want to defend their pork barrel spending.

As far as I can see your defense of Ron Paul is really an admission that he is just as bad as most Congressmen on pork barrel earmarks.

$400 million is a pretty damn big haul for a Congressman like Paul who isn't a committee chairman. What shady promises and backroom deals did he cut to get this dirty earmarked pork barrel money? I suspect they involve the NAFTA highway.

Ron Paul is no conservative. He's not even much of a Libertarian considering his pork barrel spending habits.
 
You're right on the judges thing, but the rest are debatable. Since this is a gun board, I'll skip right to number 5. Rudy Guiliani believes Congress should pass a law saying we must show a need for a handgun before owning one.
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And guess where rights are won and lost. I'll give you a hint. Its not the legislature or the executive. As far as taxes and healthcare, excuse me while I contain my laughter. Guliani has his issues, but fiscally he has always been conservative. If nothing else I don't see him proposing that every newborn gets 5k from the government (guess where the 5k is gonna come from).

As far as the gun issue, can you please provide me with a link or something that shows when and where that statement was made. However even if this is what Guliani said, Hillary would love to see an outright ban on firearms period. I grant yout that Rudy is not a gun owner savior, but he's far from what Hillary would do.

And this doesn't even begin to start on foreign policy.
 
cool hand luke said:
$400 million is a pretty damn big haul for a Congressman like Paul who isn't a committee chairman. What shady promises and backroom deals did he cut to get this dirty earmarked pork barrel money? I suspect they involve the NAFTA highway.
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The basis for your suspicion?

It could not possibly be Ron Paul's recent article on that subject, which begins:

Another NAFTA nail is about to be hammered into the coffin Washington is building for the US economy. Within the next few days our borders will be opened to the Mexican trucking industry in an unprecedented way. A "pilot" program is starting which will allow trucks from Mexico to haul goods beyond the 25 mile buffer zone to any point in the United States . Officials claim this is being done with utmost oversight, but Americans still have their legitimate concerns. Rather than securing our borders, we seem to be providing more pores for illegal aliens, drug dealers, and terrorists to permeate...
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Stage2 said:
As far as the gun issue, can you please provide me with a link or something that shows when and where that statement was made.
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I provided it in response to something you said a month ago, and in post 121 of this thread, and in two whole separate threads I started just for the purpose, among other places, but I'm not tired of posting this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emeu2KRt2Vg

That is a Meet the Press interview with Rudy in February 2000, in which he said he had held the position that Congress should pass a law saying we must show a need for a handgun before owning one (among other requirements) for 20 years.
 
It could not possibly be Ron Paul's recent article on that subject, which begins:
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The statement you linked to from Ron Paul concerns the DoT pilot project to allow Mexican trucking companies to have unlimited access to the US. It says nothing at all about the "Trans Texas Corridor" highway project.

Ron Paul has voiced his supposed *opposition* to the project. However, given his reported sellouts on pork barrel earmark spending you have to wonder how much credibility to give to anything he says about the NAFTA highway. He might just be trying to get a higher price for his vote.

How can anyone put any credence into the statements from "Dr. No" when he becomes ole Doc "Gimmie Some-a-dat" when it comes to pork barrel money to get himself reelected, just like a latter-day Huey Long.

Paul's earmarks for dredging the Texas City Channel and money for the Galveston Rail Causeway Bridge are going to tie right in to the NAFTA Highway.

Particularly troubling is Paul's earmark request for Interstate 69, that is OFFICIALLY part of the trans-Texas corridor (TTC):

Dr. Paul's earmark requests (go to page 20 of the .pdf):
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/allpolitics/0706/popup.congress.earmarks/pdfs/tx.14.paul.pdf

The Official word that I-69 IS part of the TTC NAFTA Highway:
http://www.keeptexasmoving.com/index.php/news/I-69,_I-10_named_Corridors_of_the_Future_by_Feds

Kind of amazing that Dr. No has 65 pages of earmark requests. Looks like he never met an Army Corps of Engineer's water project he doesn't like.
 
Most corrupt politicians accept their pensions, yet Ron Paul won't. Why do you suppose that is?
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-He made his pile already and doesn't need the money? (He was an M.D. after all).

-His wife has money?

-He's a typical ideologue who intends to never retire making the whole issue moot?

Keep in mind that Paul is yet to retire. I'll believe he is sincere when he actually turns the pension down upon retirement. Right now it's all talk.
 
OK, how about his refusal to accept federal matching funds for his campaign?

Wouldn't a power-hungry idealogue want to dig into taxypayers' pockets to double the 5 million he raised last quarter, and find some way to justify it?

Are there any other candidates in the race who believe the taxpayers should not finance their political campaigns, and who are actually acting on that belief?
 
Doesn't accepting matching funds mean having to follow certain rules about how your raise money? Maybe he doesn't want to accept matching funds because it would force changes in how much of his own(or certain rich friends) money he can spend?
 
Yeah, it's probably just a few guys spamming the campaign with $5 million under thousands and thousands of different identities during the last quarter to produce an average campaign contribution of $40.
 
Yeah, it's probably just a few guys spamming the campaign with $5 million under thousands and thousands of different identities during the last quarter to produce an average campaign contribution of $40.
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I'll definitely give Paul credit for the squeaky clean way he handles campaign contributions.

Because of all his earmark requests for waterways projects, I did a little checking to see if he's taken any money from the barge industry. It looks like he takes almost all his contributions from small donors.

Paul apparently takes very little PAC or corporate money.
 
Yeah, it's probably just a few guys spamming the campaign with $5 million under thousands and thousands of different identities during the last quarter to produce an average campaign contribution of $40.
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Because "average" ____ does not work well on things with uneven distributions and very wide deviations. Or, why the income of counties in the U.S. are measured by medians, not averages (imagine Bill Gates buying some property at a trailer park)

One guy cutting a check for $1000 for RP, plus 2 dozen other guys tossing the presidential hopeful a nickel apiece... should average out to be $40 per donation. Although personally, I'd consider a nickel as less of a campaign contribution but something more like pity.
 
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