Ron Paul's Life Will Never Be the Same

Texan's presidential campaign makes lasting impact on his foot soldiers

The excitement of Rep. Ron Paul’s unorthodox presidential campaign has faded since last fall. The chances were always slim that Paul would get to go to the White House to collect President Bush’s endorsement, as Sen. John McCain did Wednesday.

But Paul scored a victory Tuesday night, crushing challenger Chris Peden in the Republican primary in his Texas congressional district.

Paul’s victory in his heavily Republican district means the 33-year House veteran will be around for at least another two years to voice his dismay both at America’s overseas entanglements and at Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s policies.

The 33-year House veteran said he can’t simply go back to the gadfly role that he had before launching his presidential bid. “I can’t revert to it. It’ll never be the same again. Life has changed,” he said. “Off and on for the 30 years, I’ve been in and out of office, I’ve asked the same questions and made the same points and there was no attention paid to it. But the last two times I’ve quizzed Bernanke, I got national coverage, I get phone calls, people from the trading pits in Chicago react to it. They cheer me on. ”

So, he concluded, “life will never be the same again. Even if I pretend I’m going to do the same thing, the message is out of the box. It’s out there and that’s exactly a goal we’ve always had: to get people to pay attention to a strictly limited government approach.”
[read more from MSNBC]



In other news, I lost in my race for precinct chairman, but I still won the delegation process. I'm glad the canvassing is over. I can quit acting locally and start focusing on campaigning at a grand scale again-- movies, websites, rallies...