Damn it, now I’m getting my hopes up.

From ABC:

ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Reports: Though often regarded as a longshot candidate for president, Republican Ron Paul tells ABC News that he has an impressive $2.4 million in cash on hand after raising an equal amount during the second quarter, putting him ahead of one-time Republican frontrunner John McCain, who reported this week he has only $2 million in the bank. 

In an exclusive interview taped Friday and airing Sunday on “This Week,” Paul said his campaign is on a better trajectory than McCain’s.

“I think some of the candidates are on the down-slope, and we’re on the up-slope,” said Paul.

Paul’s cash on hand puts him in third place in the Republican field in that important metric, although he is well behind leader Rudy Giuliani, who has $18 million in the bank, and Mitt Romney, with $12 million.

This is huge news for two reasons.  The most obvious is the dramatic downfall of the media’s anointed GOP front runner.  To me, though, that is over shadowed by the fact that a libertarian candidate is even in the campaign finance ballpark.

Both traditional Democrats and Republicans operate virtual cash machines because they promise to use the federal government not to promote liberty and freedom, but to directly benefit select constituencies.  Entitlements, social restrictions, and economic protectionism (just to name a few) are examples of signature issues used by most major candidates.  Dr. Paul simply promises liberty via a return to traditional non-interventionist limited federal government.  It’s not exactly the promise that gets big business or big entitlement advocates to open their wallets.  Big businesses want economic protectionism and managed trade with enough regulations to suffice as barriers to entry for the competition.  The entitlement folks want to enrich themselves through the fruits of other’s labor rather than their own.

Let’s hope that Dr. Paul can continue to keep his campaign on the up-slope. 

Ron Paul 2008.

Kudos to the Alabama Democrat.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 10:47 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.