Dr. Rand Paul says the Dems will win in ’08
Story Transcript
DR. RAND PAUL, SON OF RON PAUL: Third place in New Hampshire keeps the buses rolling. You know, it shows that we have significant support. And it shows that there are people out there hungry for another way. All the other Republican candidates are for continuing the war. John McCain said he’d continue the war for another hundred years, for goodness’ sake. He would keep troops in Iraq for a hundred years. I don’t think the independent voters in New Hampshire are for being in Iraq for a hundred years. And if they’re thinking about John McCain or Ron Paul, they need to think: Do you want to be in Iraq for a hundred more years? That’s crazy. Is it okay to have another opinion in the Republican primary? You know, we have to allow and we should want to allow debate in our country. You know, my dad’s a fiscal conservative. My dad voted against every one of George Bush’s pledges. Every one of George Bush’s pledges has been hugely in debt. George Bush has added $2.5 trillion of debt. George Bush will go down in history as the most fiscally liberal president in our history, because of the huge amount of money spent overseas and all the money spent domestically. Some say, oh, it was spent on the war on terror. Untrue. About a trillion on the war on terror and a trillion and a half of deficits spending on domestic programs. The Republicans turned out to be worse than the Democrats.
MARK JOHNSON, WDEV BURLINGTON, V.T.: Tell me about your dad. Is he a guy who, when you were growing up, just was a policy wog and would talk to you guys about issues? Tell me a little about what he’s like.
PAUL: Well, I guess a good contrast would be, you know, the other day, they asked Huckabee a question, and he had not heard of the National Intelligence Estimate. I can guarantee you my dad had heard of the National Intelligence Estimate. My dad will read five or six newspapers in the morning. He reads the Internet. He is a guy who keeps up. Is he a policy wog? No, he’s a regular guy in some ways too. He rides his bike every day, walks three or four miles; he’s an exercise fanatic. Allowing people to get their health care where they choose to get their health care.
[inaudible]
PAUL: I’m an eye surgeon in Kentucky.
JOHNSON: Your father’s been in office now for a couple of decades. Tell me how you think the Republican Party has changed in that twenty-plus year that he’s been around.
PAUL: Some of it’s really simple. The Republicans are better when they’re in opposition. Like, you know, when the Democrats take over next year, which they almost certainly will—they’ve taken over Congress, and I’d say the odds are ten-to-one that they’ll win in 2008, unless they nominate Ron Paul, because the war’s so unpopular. You know, Barack’s getting big crowds. You know, in Iowa, there were 250,000 Democrats voted, about 100,000 Republicans voted. Republicans are getting killed everywhere. They don’t understand it. It’s the war, it’s the war, it’s the war. They want to go into Iran next. They’re all bellicose and beating their chests to go into Iran. And they’ll oppose the Democrats on every spending bill once they’re out of power. But when they’re in power, they’re just as bad as the Democrats. Some of that’s a part of our system, that people get in power, and then all of their friends want favors from government too. And, you know, my dad has proposed as a campaign finance reform idea that if you do business with government, if you’re Halliburton and you get a billion dollar contract, part of it should be voluntary signing a contract that says, “I will not contribute to campaigns, my PACs won’t, my corporate officers won’t,” because that’s where it’s coming from. Look at Halliburton. When Dick Cheney was vice president, the last thing he did—no, when he was secretary of defense under the first Bush, the last thing he did was got a $4 billion contract for Halliburton. Who’d he go to work for? Halliburton. Did he enrich himself? Hundreds of millions of dollars. I think if we put all my dad’s supporters in a room with Dennis Kucinich supporters, and I think they’d be drinking beer and having a good time. And they’re polar opposites in some ways, but come together on the war. But what I say about our supporters is it’s the leave-me-alone coalition. People want to be left alone for several different reasons. We have supporters. A lot of them are home schoolers. They drink non-pasteurized milk and don’t want the government to tell them about their milk. They want to teach their kids at home. They are very fearful that the government will be involved with their religion. So many evangelical Christians support my dad. We also have people who have multiple sclerosis living in California who want to use medical marijuana. We have some who might even want to use it recreationally, and they support him because my dad’s for leaving them alone. My dad says with freedom comes responsibility, but with it also comes tolerance: You have to tolerate people who don’t have the same lifestyle as you, look like you, who have a different color of skin, a different philosophy. Freedom is about toleration, and that’s what Constitution is about. But you have to tolerate people of other things, but you have to give them the freedom to let them do things.
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