Need a pithy / truthy response: What exactly was / is Ron Paul's appeal?

[callous taoboy]

I live in a bright red area in a red state. There are no McCain signs up yet, but there are still many Ron Paul signs, a number of them very large and I've seen at least 5 billboards along county roads pleading for us to become part of the Ron Paul revolution.

Besides his disgust with the Iraq war, what would be his appeal in this particular redneck area? I should also mention that the county I live in has the second highest interest-earned income in the nation.

[rox63]

1. I think it's because he's a cranky old coot n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. He wants to get rid of the IRS

as well as lots of the big government people like to complain about. His libertarian message appeals to lots of angry Americans.

[barbtries]

3. mmmmm....

i dunno.

pith on vacation.

[LakeSamish706]

4. He's against the Iraq war! n/t

[YOY]

5. It's all the "Personal Accountability" Libertarian with a Big L BS that many RWers push

Supplemented with a healthy dose of fundie values.

It's for all those idiots who call themselves "conservative" but can actually see that the war was an incredibly corrupt and overall horrible idea yet cannot tear themselves from the glorious movement of the Neanderthals that is the "Reagan conservative revolution".

[nxylas]

6. I think I've seen enough webposts from Paulbots to attempt an answer

Their argument runs something like this: "Paul is a genuinely conservative candidate, unlike John McCain, who is more like a pro-war liberal. He is right on the war, while all the other Republican candidates are wrong. He takes the right positions on abortion and immigration, whilst also preserving Americans' freedom from intrusion by the state (PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, gun control, civil rights legislation etc)". These are not arguments that are likely to appeal to DUers of course, but then we're not exactly Paul's core constituency.

[mitchleary]

8. He brings the

combination of "F you, I got mine" coupled with a disbelief in evolution. A repub wet dream.

[callous taoboy]

13. Ah HAH! So that's why one billboard I saw this morning had

"evolution" in bright red letters in the word "revolution." See I'm researching Ron Paul code, coded messages etc. that bring out the worst in the bushbots in the area. Thanks!

[Blue_Tires]

18. that's pretty close to their 'script'

which i hardly ever seen online anymore, thank the gods...

paul's primary appeal is still to the anti-tax folks....

[anniebelle]

7. He represents the Hoover Days Are Here Again!

[VP505]

9. Simple, his

appeal is sort of like masochism, his ideals hurt sooooo goood.

[ThomWV]

10. He makes idiotic claims and assertions and idiots love him for it. Its that simple.

Or you could say he makes overly simplistic claims and assertions and simpletons love him for it and agree with every simple bit of it.

[ProfessorGAC]

24. What Thom Said

He proposes simplistic two dimensional ideas to solve multidimensional problems and issues and shallow thinkers are willing to believe that it's all that simple.

The Professor

[lisa58]

11. no taxes - no education - no government

[callous taoboy]

16. I knew about his desire to kill off the Dept. of Ed. In fact,

I had to remind a fellow teacher of this fact when he expressed interest in Paul.

[Supersedeas]

12. he's a white guy who says some of the same things that Rev Wright says--only he's white

[alfredo]

14. He reminds me of the bootlegger from my home town.

He was a good ole guy that didn't care if you were ten or twenty. He didn't discriminate on age.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. that's easy

He's basically a Libertarian. He wants to cut taxes to the bone (many of the early Ron Paul signs mentioned this), wants everyone free access to guns, and wants to make it legal to have and to purchase drugs. These would be the three main areas of appeal around here, along with getting out of Iraq.

[callous taoboy]

17. Drugs? So I'm potentially surrounded by cocaine cowboys....

Oxycontin crazed hillbillies?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

25. Or pot smoking people

Funny how smoking the whacky tabacky seems to cross the political spectrum.....

[Mojorabbit]

19. He had a few things going for him

respect for the constitution, antiwar, anti patriot act. the rest not so much.

[ozone_man]

20. Abolish the Federal Reserve for one.

I think we're starting to see some anger over the private control of our monetary system. Look at what they did to our currency. It's not just the FED though, It's Congress and the president who authorize deficit spending. Paul would not allow deficit spending, but only balanced budgets. We see that the interest on our over $9 trillion dollar debt is becoming our largest budget item.

He proposes abolishing the FED and restoring the gold standard. Kucinich proposes placing the FED under the U.S. Treasury. In both cases the power of money creation is returned to the government, which is how it used to be. The FED does not work in the public interest. It works in the interest of corporations.

Another big issue is corporate welfare. A large part of which is spent on the military industrial complex. Get rid of it all, except for the part needed to defend the country. The Iraq war is a large reason why we're having a recession now. He voted against it.

Restore Constitutional rights. Repeal the Patriot Act. He voted against it. Restore rights to privacy. He presented a bill to Congress to do these things.

I think these are the issues that liberals can get behind. Of course he is a right wing Libertarian, so is a social conservative with many issues that liberals won't like.

He and Kucinich are both libertarian of the right and left varieties. He's big L Libertarian, the kind we normally think of, except that he also has some Republican issues like anti-abortion which conflict with Libertarianism. Both are anti-imperialists though, and want to end our foreign imperialism, end corporate welfare, and end the FED as we know it. These are issues that Democrats are afraid to touch for the most part.

[callous taoboy]

23. Thanks, Ozone. n/t

[Justitia]

21. Anti-Gov't Contrariness, in a NUTshell. -eom

[guitar man]

22. legalized pot nt