Ron Paul Rules Out 3rd Party Run, Scales Down Campaign

Ron Paul has announced that he is scaling down his campaign and, has absolutely ruled out a third-party Presidential run. He plans to focus on his reelection to Congress. He faces a March 4 primary challenge in his home district.

For the first time, Paul left no wiggle-room in addressing the third-party question:

Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties – just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

Thank you, Dr. Paul, for a great effort.

123 thoughts on “Ron Paul Rules Out 3rd Party Run, Scales Down Campaign”

  1. Anyone who has watched this presidential election process can see that it was and is fixed by the party power structure, the media and other monied interest groups. Ron Paul accurately denounced the Warfare-Welfare state of today during the last Republican debate, while the smirking McCain and Romney look on as if to say: “Old man, we are wealthy celebrities from wealthy places (Massachusetts and D.C.). You represent some small Texas district and, in effect, people of no import. We matter, you and your ‘ideas’ do not.”

    Ron Paul’s grassroots success simultaneously inspired hope for a real change and anger at the power structure that prevents it. People who have been inspired by Dr. Paul (as I have) should use that anger to continue the fight to restore our belief in the value of a constitutional democracy. This has never been about a single man but about the power of the ideas, which is what Ron Paul has said from the beginning. He is looking for someone to pick up the baton and continue the fight.

  2. Whining. Let’s face it, those of us who supported Ron Paul have been had. No, we didn’t want a guarantee that he would win, we at least wanted him to try. It seems that all he wants is to stay in his comfortable congressional seat.

    A third party candidacy would have made it impossible for the press to ignore him, so his message would have been put out there. I wish that he had much belief in his message as his supporters have.

    1. Third party will split the party and give it to the Democrats. That’s what Roosevelt did to Taft leaving us Wilson and the income tax and the Federal Reserve and popular Senate elections.

      I will vote for Ron Paul for President even if I have to write in his name. Many if not all of Dr. Paul’s supporters will cast no other vote especially for war. If the Party will pull for Dr. Paul then the combined totals might be that winning combination. Antiwar democrats will eventually join just to stop this illegitimate war. Eventually the majority will be heard hopefully before too many more innocent children die for our inability to act decisively.

      Dr. Paul says Romney’s suspension makes a brokered convention unlikely. The next day’s primary makes it look like it is still possible. If Dr. Paul’s campaign can get most precincts covered plus the help of loyal republicans and suddenly there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You can’t do that with a third party run. A third party candidate can’t win, which is what John and other third party enthusiasts really want. Clever ploy?!

      “If the Republican Party will pull for Dr. Paul” is the challenge. I wouldn’t have thought it possible even last month. But I watch Dr. Paul and he is one of the friendliest people I’ve ever watched. He’s made over half a million friends who have voted and millions more around the world.

      Have no doubt it is Dr. Paul’s campaign and the millions of dollars from grass root supporters that earned the relative calm in Iraq not our surge or our pogroms and ghettos. Just read Gilgamesh. The Fertile Crescent has been dealing with tyrants for millenia. The US is just one more in a long boring list.

      Once on TV I mistook Dr. Paul’s voice for Fred Rogers Well, they are from the same neighborhood: Pittsburgh. Both Ron and Fred are my idea of leaders, because they go where I could follow.

  3. He isn’t out of the race. We’re still campaigning for him in Texas.

    The conservatives in the GOP won’t abide McCain, period. If McCain doesn’t have enough delegates to win the convention, he can’t win. A brokered convention is still in play which would result, most likely, in a non-candidate being nominated. If Ron has enough delegates (he currently has around 50, and can pick up loads more in TX), he will have a say in who the nominee will be.

    You have to understand this esoteric process to work the system.

    Are you just going to sit back and get more war? Get off your arse and help Ron win more delegates!

  4. BTW, Ron just bought $700,000 in ads here, so he’s obviously not out. He could have chosen his words more wisely in his email, but we’re still in it regardless.

    1. Oh, were they ads declaring his vigorous support for impeachment and upholding what is left of the Constitution?

      Perhaps he should do less marketing of his childish economic ideas and more reading of Paul Craig Roberts and the U.S. Constitution.

      As Congressman he already holds a position with Constitutional powers and duties to discharge.

      He apparently is reluctant to discharge that power and duty in regard to limiting and holding to account the Executive Branch’s unconstitutional usurpation of powers and privileges.

      Why would anyone who takes the Constitution seriously wish to support just another prospective King?

  5. Ah yes, vote and support for the next King, a man who will dismantle the Kingship from a position of real power, King.

    Sound a bit fishy?

  6. Would it not be interesting, even as an entertainment, to ponder a new national political party that never fields a presidential candidate, but only Congressional ones, and the thrust of which is to limit Executive power and bring it back within limits of the Constitution?

    Alas, so lacking in glamor that it might even work.

    Among Serbs or Iraqis perhaps, or even Japanese and Germans.

    Among Americans it may be a waste of time.

    Perhaps Kucinich might be interested.

    I am not lightly riveted, nor would I easily have ever called myself a Progressive, and certainly not a Democrat, but I went to the trouble of reading through Kucinich’s well crafted positions on many topics on his website.

    I was very surprised how, particularly structurally, he is so far ahead of the curve, not only in regard to Health Care based on a risk pool, and impeachment, where he singularly put his power on the line as a Congressman, and voting machine fraud, but also on many other centrally important topics.

    A man, whatever his political coloration, who thinks things through, and thoroughly.

    Ah, you say, he is no longer running for the presidency?

    As I said when he withdrew–that’s a good sign. He is now much more important than he ever would have been as third or fourth in line in the sham of a national presidential race, and especially as a Democrat.

    I have heard, with what reliability I do not know, that Kucinich some time ago sent out feelers to Paul in regard to an independent run, and was refused.

    If true, it speaks volumes.

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