Paul for President!

No, not me.

Ron Paul. He's announced he's running.

Paul, a nine-term congressman who represents a district just south of Houston that includes Galveston and stretches along the Gulf Coast nearly to Corpus Christi, describes himself as a lifelong Libertarian running as a Republican.

Paul has spent most of his career outside the GOPs traditional circles. He limits his view of the role of the federal government to those specifically laid out in the U.S. Constitution. As a result, he sometimes casts votes that appear at odds with his constituents and other Republicans.

Paul, for example, was the only Republican congressman to vote against Department of Defense appropriations for fiscal year 2007, which he opposed because of the war in Iraq — a war he says is "not necessary for our actual security."

He once described President Bush as "not a constitutional president" and voted against a resolution declaring that the United States would win the war on terror.

He acknowledges that the national Republican Party has largely shunned him despite his nine terms in office under its banner. He gets little money from the GOP's large traditional donors, but benefits from individual conservative and Libertarian donors outside Texas.

Will he win? Of course not. With rampant Statism the order of the day in both parties, certainly a Classical Liberal has no chance. What his candidancy will do, however, is bring to light the differences between people who say they are for smaller government, and people who really are for smaller government.

Of course, this wasn't covered anywhere by the national media... it's an AP story that I found on a couple of Libertarian type sites, and local Texas newspapers. Meanwhile, Chuck Hagel's lack of an announcement got national press. Go figure.

Oh, and to John McCain: Please don't have me arrested. This is not a campaign contribution.