For Paul, last day in Iowa is mixed
He still rakes in the cash, but Fox dumps him from debate over poor showing in polls
DES MOINES, IOWA — He’s polling in the single digits and the pundits have written him off, but a defiant Ron Paul told more than 200 supporters here Wednesday he plans to confound the doubters.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” the Lake Jackson Republican said. “But I think we are going to do well, probably better than expected.”
At several stops in Iowa the day before today’s pivotal caucuses, the Texas congressman expressed wonderment at how far his campaign has come in the past year — from an off-beat notion to a fully staffed, well-funded political machine.
“As it turns out, the stories out there about a few spammers running our campaign aren’t true,” Paul told a rally of veterans and other supporters at a downtown hotel.
The crowds and cheers capped a day of good news and bad news for the Paul campaign. His handlers reported Paul raised $19 million in the last quarter of 2007, a noteworthy sum equal to what Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is expected to report in the same period.
But Paul also learned that, because of his lackluster showing in the polls, he will not be invited to participate in Sunday’s Fox News/New Hampshire Republican Party debate, a key event before next week’s New Hampshire primary.
“Given Ron Paul’s support in New Hampshire and his recent historic fund-raising success, it is outrageous that Dr. Paul would be excluded,” said campaign manager Kent Snyder.
A recent Des Moines Register poll found Paul had the support of about 9 percent of the state’s likely caucus goers, or the same as Republican Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee. Iowa front-runner Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, had 32 percent.
A recent poll of New Hampshire voters by CNN/WMUR found Paul with 7 percent, or three percentage points behind Huckabee in the state. Both Huckabee and Thompson are participating in the New Hampshire debate.
Even so, Paul’s campaign has often refueled itself on adversity. For Paul, underdog status has proven a mantle of virtue, and these days he is making frequent mention of the news media and others who regard his campaign as a quirky oddity.
“I was reluctant to get into the race. I was talked into it by a number of people,” Paul said. “This past year, I have removed the skepticism, believe me, and I am now a genuine true believer that this country is ready for a real change.”
Paul, an anti-abortion Republican who is against the war in Iraq and favors an economic policy that includes a return to the gold standard, is going to win in Iowa by a long-shot and beyond.
“He seems to attract a wide assortment of people with all different agendas,” said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University. “For example, he has got this Libertarian streak, and yet he combines it with an anti-abortion stance — he cuts across normal party division.”
For Paul’s Iowa supporters, a central theme of agreement is his America-first foreign policy, which calls for withdrawing the troops from Iraq and other places and refusing to get involved in the business of other countries.
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
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Filed under: Goals Direction, Positive Encouragement, Ron Paul, You Can Do It Tagged: des moines, Election 2008, hilary clinton, locust street, politics, primaries, rep ron paul, republican ron paul, revolution, Ron Paul, Texas congressman, voting, youth
