Thursday, January 25, 2007
 From Bruce Bartlett in the New York Times January 23, 2007 via Fair Use Archive: "The other day, I went by to visit Congressman Ron Paul, Republican of Texas. My first "real" job in Washington was working for him when he was initially elected to Congress in 1976, and I wanted to see how he was doing. Little did I realize when I made the appointment that I would be talking to a candidate for president.
I remember clearly when I first heard of Ron. It was in an article in The Washington Post on April 5, 1976, which said that he had just won a special election. ...
I was looking for a job at the time, so I sent a resume and a couple of articles I had published to Ron's office and about a month later got an interview with him. I remember that his office had a complete set of books distributed by the Foundation for Economic Education, in Irvington, N. Y., the most prominent free-market think tank in the United States at that time.
This was a good sign because I had published two articles in the foundation’s journal, The Freeman. . .
Ron saw the roots of the inflation problem in fiat money – currency not backed by gold or other tangible assets. At the time, this was a controversial position. But there was no denying that inflation had accelerated in 1971, when the United States cut the dollar's last link to gold. This meant that the Federal Reserve Board was no longer constrained by how much it could increase the money supply, which increased rapidly along with inflation.
Although few economists supported a return to the gold standard, as Ron did (and still does), his critique of the Fed for creating the inflation problem dovetailed with that of "monetarists" like Milton Friedman, the late University of Chicago economist. At that time, most economists thought something other than the money supply was the main cause of inflation – budget deficits, higher prices for oil engineered by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bad harvests, whatever.
The Fed chairman at that time was Arthur Burns. . . Burns's performances were masterful, but unilluminating. He always found some way to blame inflation on something other than Fed policy.
Since Burns was a Republican who had been appointed by Richard Nixon, criticizing him wasn't really in the Republican playbook. But Ron was adamant that inflation had no other cause than too much money and that Burns could stop it if he wanted to. Most economists now agree with this view. . .
In other ways as well, Ron was not your average Republican or a typical member of Congress. Most Republicans reflexively voted whatever way the White House told them to – Gerald Ford was still president, and party unity was the order of the day. And most congressmen hate being on the wrong side of a lopsided vote. But Ron voted his conscience and was often the only "nay" vote out of 435.
Since Ron is a medical doctor, he became known as "Dr. No," which delighted him. He hadn't run for Congress as a stepping stone to becoming a lobbyist, but to define the political spectrum by showing how a consistent libertarian would vote. This meant being for the free market and against gun control – conventional right-wing positions – but also being in favor of drug legalization and nonintervention in foreign affairs – more commonly left-wing positions.
This is still Ron's philosophy. It is why he has consistently opposed the war in Iraq, making him something of a darling among those on the left who see no connection between Ron's free market views and his antiwar position. But to him and other libertarians the issues are one and the same. They’re against unjustified government intervention at home or abroad.
. . . In 1988, he was the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, garnering 432,000 votes nationally.
In 1996, Ron was re-elected to Congress in a different district. (Tom Delay had his old district.) The Republican leadership wasn't too happy to have him back, however, because they had persuaded the Democratic congressman in Ron's new district to switch parties with a promise that he would run unopposed. But Ron had made no such promise.
Ron upset the Republican leadership's plans to get other Democrats to switch party and embarrassed them by winning the Republican nomination and the general election. When he came back to the House, his fellow Republicans denied him the seniority to which he was entitled because of his previous service, and generally treated him as an outcast. . .
I asked Ron why he kept running for office . . . he said it was because he enjoyed the job. He gets to say what he thinks, meets interesting people, and shows that honesty and adherence to principle are not the political albatrosses that most politicians think they are. It's worth noting that in 2006, when Republicans were losing control of Congress, Ron got 60 percent of the vote in his district.
[...]During my visit, Ron had to leave for a vote, and that prevented my asking him about his future – according to press reports he has formed an exploratory committee to seek the Republican presidential nomination. Obviously, this is a long shot, but at least he has the advantage of being the only announced candidate in either party who has already received a political party's presidential nomination.
In any other year, one would automatically dismiss Ron’s chances as quixotic at best. But 2008 is shaping up as an unusually fluid year politically, with no clear front-runner in either party, and new candidates emerging almost weekly. And the Internet has leveled the playing field in many ways. It may be a year when anything can happen.
----- Labels: Ron Paul
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