Posted: September 28, 2007 12:57 PM
Paul Shrugs off Empty Lecterns to Champion Freedom
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Rep. Ron Paul showed up for PBS’ minority forum on Thursday, and unlike other GOP candidates,  Democratic leaders, the press and irritated host Tavis Smiley, Paul didn’t seem to mind standing next to empty lecterns set up for the four leading Republican candidates who chose to skip the debate.
“The main reason I’m here is because I was invited and I’m delighted that I was invited. And I’m very pleased because I go wherever I’m invited to talk about freedom. That to me is the most important thing, along with the emphasis on the Constitution,” Paul said to loud applause. Last week, Paul’s supporters had a run in with one of the forum’s no-shows: Republican presidential front runner Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani had the misfortune of finding himself trapped on a ferry ride from Makinac Island in Michigan with a lively group of Paul supporters Friday evening.
The Republican candidates were on hand for the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference last weekend and the event produced an awkward confrontation between chanting, taunting Paul supporters and an apparently timid Giuliani, who hid in the ferry’s pilothouse as people shouted Ron Paul’s name repeatedly.
A Paul supporter captured the event on video, which shows supporters basically chasing Giuliani off the boat and into a waiting car.
The Detroit Free Press reported that at least some of the Paul supporters were jeering and taunting Giuliani because they think the former mayor of New York was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Campaign spokesman Jesse Benton told the newspaper that the campaign did not organize the incident and does not endorse the idea that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated or allowed to happen by the American government.
“They were not employees. They were not enlisted,” Benton told the Detroit Free Press. If they expressed the view that Giuliani somehow knew in advance about the attacks, they were not representing the campaign, he added.
The vitriolic reaction to Giuliani’s presence on the ferry from the Paul supporters last Friday was likely inspired by this exchange at the South Carolina Republican Debate in May.
After Paul told the moderator that the Sept. 11 attacks were a result of terrorist blowback from an overly interventionist foreign policy, Giuliani snapped back at Paul, asking him to rescind his comments that “we invited the attack.”
After the debate incident, the Paul campaign released a “Reading for Rudy” list of reading materials and summaries about foreign policy for the candidate to read in case he is too busy giving $100,000 speeches.
In a similar faceoff with another conservative earlier this month, Paul and Fox News host Bill O’Reilly argued about the merits of intervening in the Middle East and both accused the other of living in a world that doesn’t exist.
-- By , NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | Comments | Link
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Ron Paul not only didn't bother to make a crack about other candidates, he also didn't say anything about reaching out to minorities. He didn't have to. He has always and consistently stood from freedom and recognition of the individual. He did mention that some limitations on freedom tended to target minorities and that he would remove those limitations.
Ron Paul will be a president for all Americans.
WHILE DR.PAUL IS CONSIDERED A DARK HORSE, HIS MATURING PLATFORM IS STARTING TO APPEAL TO AN EVER INCREASING VOTING PUBLIC. HIS VIEWPOINTS SEEM TO RESONATE WITH ANYONE WHO IS FED UP WITH THE OBVIOUS KNEEJERK BLATHER FROM CANIDATES OF BOTH PARTIES.
"A Paul supporter captured the event on video, which shows supporters basically chasing Giuliani off the boat and into a waiting car."
I watched the linked video expecting to be disgusted by the behavior of the Paul supporters, but I didn't see anything like them "chasing" Giuliani. That statement should be retracted.