December 24, 2007

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Paul Won’t Rule Out Run as Independent

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman stirring up the Republican presidential contest with his libertarian-leaning views and online fundraising prowess, left the door open Sunday to running as an independent, should he not win the Republican nomination.

Paul, who has railed against excessive federal spending, also defended his own earmarks to benefit his congressional district into spending bills, likening them to a “tax credit” for his constituents. He added that his position was consistent because he ultimately voted against the spending measures.

And he decried the Civil War, calling it a needless effort for which hundreds of thousands of Americans paid with their lives. He rejected that the war spelled the end to slavery in the United States, saying that the U.S. government could have simply bought the slaves from the Confederate States of America and freed them.

During a one-on-one interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Tim Russert challenged Paul particularly hard on the earmarks, saying that the congressman inserted them because he knew the bills would pass even with Paul voting no.

“When you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in … the spending bills, then I think you’ll be consistent,” Russert said, one of his most direct criticisms of a candidate in recent memory.

Paul said that while the chance of his running as an independent was slim, “I deserve one wiggle now and then.” He ran for president as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.

Paul also reviewed his no-government approach on a range of issues, including what he called the ill-advised involvement of the U.S. military in the Civil War.

Russert said, if it weren’t for the Civil War, there’d still be slavery.

“Oh, come on,” Paul replied. “Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world.”

He continued, “You buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years?”

More often than in the past, Paul seemed to soften his stance on some issues, such as getting rid of the FBI and CIA.

“I’m against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King,” Paul said. The CIA is “involved in torture. I would abolish that.”

But, he said, “I would not abolish all their functions.”

Paul said he was convinced that Israel and many neoconservatives in the United States would like to commence bombing on Iran. He repeated his argument that a major reason for Islamic terrorism against the United States was the country’s high-profile presence around the world, including in Saudi Arabia.

“We have to understand how we would react if some country did to us what we do to them,” Paul said.

Paul liked President Bush to a “radical” in the conflict.

“I’m talking about the people who hijacked our policy,” Paul said. “The president himself has changed the policy.”

With the rise of the powerful corporations, the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry and huge amounts of spending by Washington, Paul said the United States is moving toward a kind of “soft fascism.”

Obama Directly Challenges Clinton’s Electability

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) directly asserted he is more electable than Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the most explicit he has been on a position he has hinted at on the campaign trail.

“I attract more Republicans and independents. And you know, I actually think that Senator Clinton is a capable, solid senator from New York,” Obama said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But because of the history of some of the battles that have taken place back in the ’90s, it is true that she tends to galvanize the other side.”

He added, “I do think that, if you start off with high negatives, then you’re playing on a very short field. And it’s hard for you then to persuade those who might be persuadable to come into your corner.”

Obama also jabbed back at Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, who recently suggested that nominating Obama would be like rolling the dice on the country.

“Much of the criticism he’s leveling at me is identical to the criticism that was leveled against him when he was running against George H.W. Bush,” Obama said. “Folks said, here’s a governor of a small state, has no foreign policy experience whatsoever. And his argument was, look, my experience is rooted in the real lives of real people and will bring real results if we have the courage to change.”

Giuliani Remains Focused on Feb. 5 Strategy

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave his own argument for electability, saying that he continues to lead the Republican field in most of the early voting states, even though his advantage in national polls has eroded.

“I believe I’m the candidate who can run a 50-state campaign as a Republican candidate. I’m not sure that others can do that,” Giuliani said on ABC’s “This Week.”

He signaled that his priority is not to run well in Iowa or New Hampshire, where he lags, but in states voting up through the Feb. 5 mega-primary, such as Florida.

“I think we’re ahead in something like 15, 18 of the 27, 28, 29″ of the states, Giuliani said. “So, we’re in pretty good shape.”

Giuliani gave a more detailed explanation of his health scare last week. He said his New York doctor would issue a detailed statement this week about the former mayor’s health.

“He will put out everything that’s appropriate to show that I’m in good health,” Giuliani said.

Host George Stephanopoulos challenged Giuliani about his boast in the last Republican debate about how “transparent” his New York administration was.

“You were sued more than two dozen times to get information out. … Lost most of them,” Stephanopoulos said.

“Almost every government has that kind of situation. … All I can tell you is, there’s a tremendous amount of information available on my mayoralty, just about every single thing that you need,” Giuliani said.

Huckabee Says He’s ‘Out to Change the Republican Party’

Surging in the polls, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said that he is “out to change the Republican Party. It needs changing. It needs to be inclusive of all those people across America for whom this party should stand.”

Huckabee has drawn blistering comments recently from Republicans over his criticism of President Bush’s foreign policy and over his view that the Republican Party cannot be so aligned with corporate or Wall Street interests.

“There are a lot of people in America that come up and shake my hand. They get out of cabs. They come from behind the skycap counter, and they tell me that they appreciate the fact that I understand what it’s like to struggle,” Huckabee said on CBS.

Huckabee was asked on CNN’s “Late Edition,” about his description of Bush’s foreign policy as “arrogant” and engaged in a “bunker mentality.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called those words “ludicrous.”

“They’re strong words but this is a strong issue,” Huckabee said. “And we need to talk about the fact that you have many members of Congress, you have members within the military community and the intelligence community, all who have said that there has not been a wider circle of involvement in terms of helping determine exactly what our goals would look like and where we would go, and making sure that we had a clear definition of what it would take in terms of military resources to accomplish our goals there.”

– by Zachary A. Goldfarb

By Post Editor | December 23, 2007; 3:47 PM ET