by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Recently
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.: Iowans,
Don’t Let CNN Make Up Your Minds – Support the Guy They Fear

A few belated
thoughts on Ron Paul and the Iowa caucuses.

Certainly itÂ’s
a disappointment. Some people counter that what matters are the
delegates, but in my opinion what actually matters right now is
momentum, and an Iowa victory would have been great in that department.
At the same time, 22% in a state that is not ideologically in RonÂ’s
camp, with all the media hate and ridicule so intense for two solid
weeks – and heck, with Ron’s opposition to ethanol subsidies
thrown in – is nothing to sniff at.

So many people
worked so hard in Iowa for this 20+% showing – particularly
A.J. Spiker, David Fischer, and Drew Ivers, all friends of mine
– and we owe them our thanks.

As a knowledgeable
friend explained to me in 2008, it is extremely difficult to reach
many traditional voters, who decide on which candidate to choose
on the basis of how much he sounds like the typical GOP product
theyÂ’ve come to expect. So they listen for a speech that says,
“I love America, Americans are the awesomest of the awesome,
we need jobs, Obama is bad, war war war – and did I say Americans
were the most awesome people ever, in the most awesome country,
and the only reason anyone might not be thrilled with our government
is because of our sheer awesomeness?”

At the same
time, the race is still up in the air in the sense that voters have
not settled on the preferred anti-Romney. This morning, while involuntarily
subjected to FOX News, I heard a newscaster say, “You can’t
get more anti-Mitt than Rick Santorum.” You know what? I’m
pretty sure you can.

What lifted
my spirits last night was Ron PaulÂ’s speech. The man is as
genuine as can be, as we already knew, so his enthusiasm last night
wasnÂ’t a put on. He is thrilled that issues once neglected
are now being discussed everywhere. He is delighted to see young
people flocking to something other than the standard GOP talking
points from 1983, which appear to satisfy older voters too set in
their ways to have an original thought. He crushed everyone in the
under-40 vote. That means his ideas are the future.

He has every
reason to be proud right now – of his supporters, and of himself.

Not one of
us would have begrudged Ron Paul a quiet retirement had he chosen
not to run this year. He had already awakened more Americans to
the real American tradition of liberty, along with the Austrian
School of economics, more than any living person, and he had stared
down the Ministry of Information and its war-propaganda politicians
more consistently than anyone I can think of.

Yet he chose
to impose on himself the unthinkable physical and mental toll of
a rigorous presidential campaign. He opened himself up to ceaseless,
vicious attack by intellectual and moral pygmies who enjoy nothing
more than dragging the name of the one honest man in politics through
the mud.

IÂ’m sure
Ron could have lived without the exhausting travel, the nonstop
attacks from left and right, all of it. But heÂ’s enduring it
for us, because – corny as this may sound – he knows these
ideas are the key to a better world.

ThatÂ’s
why IÂ’ll be standing by him, doing whatever I can for the cause,
in the weeks and months ahead, and helping promote peace, freedom,
and prosperity. No way is this not worth fighting for. Now we simply
fight all the harder.

I hope youÂ’ll
continue to join me.

Reprinted
with permission from TomWoods.com.

January
5, 2012

Thomas
E. Woods, Jr. [send him
mail; visit
his website], a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises
Institute, is the author of eleven books, most recently Rollback:
Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse and
Nullification:
How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, as well
as the New York Times bestsellers Meltdown:
A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy
Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse and
The
Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. He is
also the editor of five other books, including the just-released
Back
on the Road to Serfdom.

Copyright
© 2012 Thomas
Woods

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