Opinion: Ron Paul tries to convince Iowa that he’s mainstream

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Ron Paul, the conservative Texas congressman who believes the Commerce Department should be abolished along with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, personal income tax and the IRS, told a crowd of Iowans that he is their mainstream candidate.

‘We are mainstream if you believe in the things that I believe in,’ Paul said Tuesday in a banquet room at the Rose Bowl Lanes in Mason City, Iowa, the Des Moines Register reports. His beliefs are that the government should be small and responsible, and personal freedoms should prevail.

‘Why shouldn’t it be mainstream to have balanced budgets and sound money and limited government, personal liberty, keep the federal government out of the business of the state government here in Iowa?’ Paul asked the crowd. ‘That, to me, seems to be mainstream.’

Big government, Paul said, ‘is a very subtle, if not direct, attack on the way we live.’

One area that Paul feels that government should restrict personal liberty is in regards to abortion.

‘Life comes from our creator, not our government,’ Politico reported Paul saying in April. ‘Liberty comes from our creator, not from government. Therefore, the purpose, if there is to be a purpose, for government is to protect life and liberty.’

Many have called Paul the godfather of the ‘tea party’ movement, which has adopted his mantra of limited government. His son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), is a tea party favorite.

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-- Tony Pierce
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