I Just Returned

from the University of Nevada, Reno, to hear Presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul of Texas speak. Several hundred people jammed the Silver and Blue Room to hear him. I heard the figure 600 bandied about, and it's probably true. I was up at the front almost next to the stage, and I was getting hotter than hell from all of the body heat.

Paul came in after some videos were shown of how he was doing on the campaign trail, including his spectacular 24-hour fundraising of over $4 million on November 5. His campaign, as people know, has been relying largely on the internet to get his message out.

And that message, of course, is extreme and actually the flip side of the flake Dennis Kucinich. However, Paul didn't hit too much on the more extreme of his extreme positions but instead hit on some of the more popular, less extreme (!) ones, such as getting us out of Iraq; pulling troops out of other countries such has Germany and Japan as being a waste of money; going back on the gold standard; abolishing the Federal Reserve (which probably got the biggest cheer from the audience); repealing NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, and the Peruvian trade agreement; making Social Security voluntary for young people while still allowing the elderly to draw from it (knowing as he does it would never work and would help bring back the poorhouse industry); getting us out of the UN; restoring habeas corpus; repealing the Patriot Act; and supporting medical marijuana as a state's rights issue, to touch on some highlights. In other words, he was cleverly appealing to all parts of the political spectrum by hitting upon some pet issues without coming across as a raving lunatic. He has a kindly demeanor, and I don't doubt he was a good doctor. He's just too damned extreme to ever get elected to national office.

Afterwards, it was the "meet and greet" time, and I was lucky enough to be the fourth in line and get two autographs from him, one for myself and one for my brother if he wants it.