The Conservative Revolution

Britain’s leading magazine of politics and economics, The Economist, has a nice write-up of the Ron Paul “Rally for the Republic” which I attended last week. The article is relatively favorable, and highlights Ron’s appeal to limited government conservatives.

His campaign for restoring limited government did not win him the Republican nomination for president. But it did earn him a legion of adoring fans who gathered for a huge counter-convention in Minneapolis, across the river from the official Republican convention in St Paul, in a 15,000-seat basketball arena.

The magazine points out that Ron’s brand of Republicanism might actually be popular in a time when the Republican Party has lost its way. It has become a party of big government, and Ron’s supporters are the true conservatives.

“I’m an old Republican,” he says: a small-government conservative, not often seen these days. The new Republicans, he seems confident, will come back to him. Although the national party treats him like a pariah, he says individual congressmen around the country are seeking his supporters to survive in what looks like a bad year for Republicans.

I am watching Ron Paul speak to thousands of cheering supporters at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. His Rally for the Republic has been a fun and moving experience. Congressman Paul is an inspiring advocate of freedom.

He just began his speech, and it will go on for the next hour or so.

Here are some points that he is making in his speech, which you can WATCH LIVE…

“No taxpayer dollars were spent on this rally.”

“I am delighted by the response to my campaign from young people.”

“I received the most number of dollars from soldiers than all the other candidates put together.”

Ron is discussing the effort to keep him out of debates in the primary.

I’m here in Minneapolis today attending Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty — Rally for the Republic. Tucker Carlson kicked it off and talked about why Ron Paul’s message about liberty and free markets appeals to so many people. The list of speakers for the rest of the day includes Barry Goldwater, Jr., Bruce Kaufman, Jesse Ventura and of course, Ron Paul.

The turnout is good, and the energy is high here. There are quite a few vendors peddling the freedom message. Our booth has handouts on economic issues and individual liberty. We are getting a good response on our online privacy video petition campaign. People are very upset about Senator Chuck Grassley’s efforts to track online transactions and tax eBay power sellers. We will be able to put together a good montage of folks telling the Senator to stop trying to take away our freedom.

The event goes on until after 9:00pm tonite, and concludes with music by country singer Sara Evans. I’ll be posting updates from the Rally throughout the day.

UPDATE: Author Tom Woods is getting a rousing welcome right now. He is talking about the federal reserve, spending and the housing bailout. The crowd is clearly angry about the way the fed has mucked up monetary policy — and they are upset about the Fannie/Freddie disaster. Woods pointed out that both parties have been over-spending and over-regulating.

UPDATE: Jesse Ventura just spoke and rocked the house. He had some great lines on the 2nd amendment, the two-party system and civil liberties. He did seem to go off the ledge a bit in insinuating that 911 was perpetrated by someone other than Osama bin Laden. Jesse is a great speaker. I was only a few feet from the podium and really enjoyed hearing him speak.

Some of my friends over at the Campaign for Liberty think he might. The word is that his training partner is a donor to the Ron Paul presidential campaign. How cool would it be for Michael Phelps to become a supporter of the freedom movement and even do an ad for Ron, or other limited government conservatives?

Here is an excerpt from the blog chatter on the subject.

His training partner, Erik Vendt, is already a dedicated follower of liberty, a $200 donor to the Ron Paul campaign (on December 16th no less), and doing his best to convince Phelps that freedom works.