Overview:
* consistent: been saying the same thing for several decades, and voting the same way as well
** look at his voting history if ya want
* libertarian: as in "obey the Constitution, plzktnx"
** exception to this being very much 'pro life'. you could easy argue that the SCOTUS has ruled abortion is fine on Constitutional grounds. Paul has birthed many babies, so ... it's easy to see why he might be pro life hehe... but this still is in Constitution contradiction.
** also, since this is a gun owner's forum, has a history of supporting the 2nd Amendment
* pro life (if this matters to you)
** there's a reason why there's a Dr. in his title
* served as an air force flight surgeon for 2 years, was in the national guard for an additional 3 years
* married to the same woman for over 50 years. has 5 kids, 17 grand kids. his kids are doctors and in politics as well.
** ie: you wanna talk family values ... ? hehehe
* is very much against big gov't, and his voting record shows that
* is very much anti-war, and his voting record shows that
* although he's "ancient" (age wise), his support base has an insane amount (ratio wise) of young people (see any youtube video etc)
** if you'd like, you can also look at the 08 election poll statistics concerning age / income / etc.
** similarly, the iowa caucuses have similar poll information
* has some rather difficult ideas concerning gold standard, end of the irs, etc.
** fiscal responsibility - yup, like that idea of his
** gold standard / irs abolishment / etc - harsher pill to swallow in practice
* is an austrian school of economics guy (and has always been afaik)
** ie: balanced budgets, can't spend more money than you have in order to "make money" etc
** see standard arguments of keynesian vs austrian arguments, keynes vs hayek, etc.
* plenty of info available online
** his campaign info site concerning "the issues":
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/** wikipedia has information as well (standard wikipedia is b.s. warning goes here)
** dailypaul.com is a source of news since the media mainly blacklists paul (standard pro-paul over zealotous warning goes here)
Note concerning researching Paul - the media
HATES him. With a passion. Similarly, his fan base is typically
EXTREMELY zealotous. As with any candidate / political research, be sure to read many sources and get all the angles from all sides and such. It really is polar opposites out there, I suggest lots of reading and making up your own mind.
I am a vocal Ron Paul supporter... but not zealotous (afaik). Abolishment of the IRS is difficult to do in any kind of short term thing (there is much of 'the federal machine' ya have to work on reducing to begin with). I also don't believe a gold standard would help things much -- you can easily debase a gold standard as you can a fiat (paper) money standard. IE: when was the last time the British pound was worth an actual pound of silver ?
above all, with any election, do your own research, do lots of reading, and come to your own conclusions.
