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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."
