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Ron Paul kicked off the Campaign for Liberty’s Iowa Conference with a powerful speech Friday night.

Transcript

Ron Paul: Thank you. Congratulations. Of course. Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s very nice to be here. I wasn’t sure I was going to get here a little while ago. I don’t know if they told you, but the plane was a little late. We were supposed to land here at about 6:30 or so, but we got on the airplane alright; that’s not too unusual. Getting through security, that’s the toughest part. I did that again, like I do it twice a week. But we got through that and we got on the plane alright, and it looked like we were going to go, and then the announcement came, they said, “Well, we got some bad news. We’re overweight.” What are we going to do? Why don’t you take some gasoline off or something? They said, “No, we have to get 9 people to leave the airplane. We need some volunteers” and they’re going to give 400 bucks so my hand went up right away. 400 bucks, I mean, just to get off the airplane. But no, I thought better of it and I thought I had an obligation and I wasn’t going to cave in for 400 bucks. But then they said, “Nobody volunteers, so we’re going to pick 9 people and they’re going to have to go”. I wondered how they’re going to do that. They said they’re just going to pick them. And lo and behold, my name comes up and I said, “What’s going on here?” So I had to pay 400 dollars to get somebody else to bribe them, and that guy got 800 dollars. That’s not exactly true, but…

Anyway, we sat for an hour or so and we made it in here. It’s so nice to see everybody, and it’s so good to understand things are happening in the Republican Party out here. That’s pretty neat. I’m so glad there is an influence. But the freedom movement is alive and well, and Campaign for Liberty is alive and well and doing quite well around the country. So to me it’s very exciting.

And I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but I have a personal interest in and election coming up soon down in Kentucky. I can’t talk about that, because I wouldn’t be very objective about that race down there. But if you try to be objective, it’s pretty interesting and it’s pretty good and it’s going to have a lot of significance no matter what they try to say about it. Rand’s doing very well. In the last poll – which was not his poll, it was an independent poll – he was up 16 points. So it is pretty amazing. But most individuals don’t believe it can be that good and it will be a lot closer, but we have 5 children, that means Rand has 4 siblings and we’ll be there on Tuesday. My wife will be going up with us there. So we’re hoping that it’s going to be an exciting evening and there will be a celebration and another message will be sent across this country that we’re ready for some changes.

I think one of the most remarkable things going on today is that the speeches are different, the promises are different. Now it’s almost a political negative to say, “I know somebody in Washington. If I can get elected, I’m going to make sure I can take care of the district and get your stuff and get all the goodies and get your earmarks.” It’s almost the opposite now; you don’t even want to be associated with Washington DC or bragging that they know how the system works.

And I think something has happened here in the last year or 2, because over the years as most of you have known, I’ve taken a rather firm stand about not voting for things that aren’t properly authorized in the Constitution. Even though that was not mainstream politics in Washington, I think subtly many of them respected those views, because so often other members would come up to me and say, “You know, this is amazing that you can do this and get re-elected, how do you do that?” But now it’s mainstream; we’re getting to be mainstream. It’s better now not to promise, to promise to go up and cut spending and cut taxes and cut regulations. No more deficits. This is what’s become popular. So there is every reason for us to be optimistic about what’s happening. Not what’s happening in Washington yet, but optimistic about what’s happening outside of Washington in groups like this, because our numbers are growing; there is no doubt about it. And of course, I’ve said so many times, and continue to be enthusiastic about going to the campuses, because the young people are certainly interested in this.

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