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Ronald Ernest “Ron” Paul (born 20 August 1935) is an American physician, congressman and presidential candidate from the U.S. state of Texas. A Republican, he has represented Texas's 14th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997, and had previously served as the representative from Texas's 22nd district in 1976 and from 1979 to 1985.

In 1984, Paul ran in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Tower, but the nomination went to Phil Gramm. Paul also supported term limits for members of Congress at the time and likened himself to the famous Senator Robert A. Taft. Paul was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in the 1988 election. After his failed presidential bid, Paul returned to Congress in 1997. He was again elected as a Republican, but against the wishes of the party leadership, which had backed Paul's primary opponent. His opponent in the primary was the incumbent representative. On 11 January 2007, Paul announced the formation of an exploratory committee for a 2008 presidential campaign. He formally declared his candidacy 12 March 2007 as a guest on Washington Journal on C-SPAN.[1]

Contents [hide]
1 Early life and education
1.1 Early political career
1.2 Return to Congress
2 Political affiliations and support
3 Views
4 2008 Presidential Campaign
5 Books by Ron Paul
6 Footnotes
7 References
8 External links



[edit] Early life and education
Paul was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Howard Caspar Paul and his wife Margaret Paul.[1][2] He graduated from Dormont High School in Dormont, Pennsylvania, in 1953. Paul attended Gettysburg College, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1957, and the Duke University School of Medicine, receiving M.D. in 1961. He did his internship and residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit from 1961 to 1962, and was a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1963 to 1968. Paul completed obstetrics and gynecology training at the University of Pittsburgh while in the Air Force from 1965–1968, and in 1968 he and his wife Carol moved to Surfside Beach, Texas.


[edit] Early political career
He became a delegate to the Texas state Republican convention in 1974. He was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for election to Congress in 1974 against the incumbent Democrat Robert R. Casey. When President Gerald R. Ford appointed Casey as head of the Federal Maritime Commission, a special election was held in April 1976 to replace him. Paul won that election but lost six months later in the general election to Democrat Robert A. Gammage. He then defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch. Paul won new terms in 1980 and 1982. He was the first congressman to propose term limit legislation for the House of Representatives. Paul was an unsuccessful candidate for US Senate in the 1984 GOP primary. In 1985, Paul returned to medical practice. He was succeeded by Tom DeLay.

In 1988, Paul won the nomination of the Libertarian Party for the U.S. Presidency. He placed third in the popular vote (with 431,750 votes - 0.47%), behind George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis.


[edit] Return to Congress
In 1996, Paul was again elected to the House as a Republican. Mainstream Republican Party figures backed the incumbent, Greg Laughlin, a conservative Democrat representative who had switched parties in the wake of the Republican takeover of Congress. Laughlin attempted to portray Paul's views as extreme and eccentric, but Paul won the primary and went on to win the general election.

Leaders of the Texas Republican Party made similar efforts to defeat him in 1998, but he again won the primary and the election. The Republican congressional leadership then agreed to a compromise: Paul votes with the Republicans on procedural matters and remains nominally Republican in exchange for the committee assignments normally due according to his seniority. This is arguably similar to the deal that Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont had with the Democratic Party (though Jeffords was elected as a Republican and was officially an independent until his retirement in January 2007). Paul was convincingly re-elected in 2000 and 2002. He was elected unopposed in 2004 to his ninth term in the Congress, and was re-elected again in 2006 by a 20-point margin.[3] He is a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus.


[edit] Political affiliations and support
Ron Paul joined the Libertarian Party in 1987 as a lifetime member, a status which he appears never to have renounced. Though only elected to Congress as a Republican, Paul remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and has addressed its national convention as recently as 2004.[4]

Libertarian Party spokesman George Getz said that thousands of libertarians across the United States donated money to Ron Paul's campaign funds. Campaign disclosures reveal that 71.4 percent of contributions to Paul's coffers come from outside his home state of Texas. [5] Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions (92.5% in 2004 and 96.8% in 2006) from individuals. [6][7]

Paul is also a former national chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus, the libertarian wing of the Republican Party.[8]



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