Once a fringe candidate, Paul shaping 2012 race

PHILIP ELLIOTT

Asso­ci­ated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — Ron Paul, once seen as a fringe can­di­date and a nui­sance to the estab­lish­ment, is shap­ing the 2012 Repub­li­can pri­mary by giv­ing voice to the party’s lib­er­tar­ian wing and reflect­ing frus­tra­tion with the United States’ inter­na­tional entanglements.

The Texas con­gress­man placed sec­ond in a key early test vote Sat­ur­day in Ames, com­ing within 152 votes of win­ning the first sig­nif­i­cant bal­lot­ing of the Repub­li­can nom­i­nat­ing con­test. Rep. Michele Bach­mann of Min­nesota won the non­bind­ing Iowa straw poll, but Paul’s orga­ni­za­tional strength and a retooled focus on social issues set him up to be a seri­ous player in the campaign.

“I believe in a very lim­ited role for gov­ern­ment. But the prime rea­son that gov­ern­ment exists in a free soci­ety is to pro­tect lib­erty, but also to pro­tect life. And I mean all life,” he told a rau­cous crowd on Saturday.

“You can­not have rel­a­tive value for life and deal with that. We can­not play God and make those deci­sions. All life is pre­cious,” he said, open­ing his remarks with an anti-abortion appeal to the social con­ser­v­a­tives who have great sway here in Iowa’s lead­off caucuses.

Later Sat­ur­day, Paul won 4,671 votes, or roughly 28 per­cent of the votes from party activists who flocked to a col­lege cam­pus for the day­long polit­i­cal carnival

Paul’s nar­row second-place fin­ish pushed for­mer Min­nesota Gov. Tim Paw­lenty down to third, lead­ing Paw­lenty on Sun­day to aban­don his effort to chal­lenge Pres­i­dent Barack Obama next November.

Four years ago, Paul sought the GOP nom­i­na­tion while talk­ing about eco­nomic pol­icy, lib­erty and the Fed­eral Reserve. Since then, the tea party has risen and seized on those issues, and some regard Paul as one of the movement’s godfathers.

“The country’s bank­rupt, and nobody wanted to admit it. And when you’re bank­rupt, you can’t keep spend­ing,” Paul said Thurs­day dur­ing a Fox News Chan­nel debate.

He may lack the broad appeal that for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney or Texas Gov. Rick Perry are claim­ing, but Paul’s fin­ish Sat­ur­day indi­cated he could compete.

Paul typ­i­cally does well in such straw polls, which rely on sup­port­ers’ inten­sity and orga­ni­za­tion. His base helped him win straw polls at June’s Repub­li­can Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence in New Orleans and February’s Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton, and his fol­low­ers orga­nize online to ensure strong fin­ishes at any con­test they can find.

It is part of their effort to get rid of the notion that Paul is a fringe candidate.

Paul’s 2008 cam­paign came up far short of bet­ter orga­nized rivals. This time, his advis­ers are putting together a more seri­ous effort that taps into vot­ers’ frus­tra­tions with Wash­ing­ton and the fears about the economy.

His aides are work­ing within the sys­tem instead of against it. For instance, Paul’s base camp for the Iowa straw poll was at the same loca­tion Rom­ney used in 2007. Rom­ney won that straw poll after invest­ing heav­ily from his deep pock­ets for the prime real estate.

Paul’s cam­paign notes that it won more votes this year than Rom­ney won four years ago dur­ing his first bid for the GOP nom­i­na­tion. This year, Rom­ney didn’t actively cam­paign dur­ing the straw poll; instead, he is look­ing at a cam­paign launch in New Hamp­shire, which hosts the first pri­mary after Iowa’s lead­off caucuses.

Still, Paul finds him­self out­side the bounds of tra­di­tional Repub­li­cans. His oppo­si­tion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan defines him as a dove. His skep­ti­cism toward the Fed­eral Reserve has spooked Wall Street. And his lib­er­tar­ian views on gay rights draw the ire of social conservatives.

He also tweaks Repub­li­cans on for­eign pol­icy, argu­ing it isn’t the United States’ role to police Iran’s nuclear pro­gram or to enforce an embargo with Cuba.

“Iran is not Ice­land, Ron,” for­mer Sen. Rick San­to­rum told Paul dur­ing Thursday’s debate.

Paul also proves a reli­able foil for Democrats.

“In pre­vi­ous pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, we might have chalked extreme fringe-type can­di­dates like Michele Bach­mann and Ron Paul as an anom­aly, (and) the Ames straw poll didn’t mean as much,” said Rep. Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz of Florida, chair­woman of the Demo­c­ra­tic National Committee.

“But we’re look­ing at the core of the Repub­li­can Party now. The heart of the Repub­li­can Party is the extreme right wing,” she told CNN.

Paul, a 75-year-old doc­tor by train­ing, is not back­ing down.

“These straw poll results, our grow­ing poll num­bers and our strong fundrais­ing show that our mes­sage is res­onat­ing with Iowans and Amer­i­cans every­where,” cam­paign chair­man Jesse Ben­ton said. “Our mes­sage was the same in 2007 as it is now in 2011, but this time we have quadru­pled our sup­port. That means our mes­sage is spread­ing, our sup­port is surg­ing and peo­ple are tak­ing notice.

Posted by AP News on Aug 14 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.