Ron Paul Takes CPAC

The veteran congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, became the star of the annual convention of the American Conservative Union, an influential coalition that organizes the most important event of the conservative movement in the United States. At this year’s convention, the 38th in its history, CPAC was able to attract over 10,000 conservative activists, the majority of them young people, to the Marriott Wardman in Washington.

Paul, a true icon of the libertarian movement in the United States, was the speaker that incited the most enthusiasm — but also the most contempt — during the event, which lasted three days. His speech was interrupted numerous times by applause and cheers of the hundreds of young people, who were able to effectively silence the boo’s coming from Paul's detractors.

In his speech, Paul took on his favorite subjects: the abolition of the Federal Reserve, the defense of civil liberties from state intrusion, the waste carried out by the federal government and the evils of North American imperialism. “Why do we need 900 military bases abroad?” he asked, before referencing Eisenhower to alert the audience to the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.”

Above all, it is Ron Paul’s isolationist stance in matters of foreign policy and security that awakens repudiation and contempt for the conservative “establishment.” His harsh criticism of the Patriot Act has hurt individuals like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who, when taking the stage at the CPAC convention, were met with booing from Paul’s supporters.

In these matters, Paul’s political stances have pushed him to the fringes of his party, so much so that Republican leaders have agreed to refuse him the option of receiving the Republican nomination for the presidency should he decide to enter himself into the primaries, as he did in 2008. However, it is now evident that he could play a role in the next elections with his enthusiastic following of thousands of young people.

As he did last year last year, Paul inserted himself into a mock primary election, voted on by attendants of the CPAC convention, demonstrating that his followers are very well organized. In this faux-primary, he received 30 percent of the votes, followed closely only by Mitt Romney, who garnered 23 percent of the vote. The rest of the conservative favorites, like Sarah Palin, New Gingrich, Mike Huckabee or Tim Pawlenty didn’t get more than five percent of the votes.

Maybe more significant than these results is the fact that 43 percent of the activists who participated in the mock vote responded in a survey that they are not satisfied with the group of alleged presidential hopefuls. In fact, it does not cease to amaze that the candidate garnering the third most votes in the mock primary, with six percent of the votes, was Chris Christie, the charismatic governor from New Jersey who has said hundreds of times that getting to the White House is not part of his political plans. If, finally, Paul does not run for president, we will have to see which candidate is capable of channeling energy, and millions of contributions, from the libertarian youth. In the general elections in 2008, Obama received a part of the libertarian vote thanks to his opposition to the war in Iraq. However, with domestic politics now at the center of the debate, this time those libertarians will definitely return to the Republican fold.