FIRST PERSON | DERRY, N.H. -- Ron Paul spoke to a crowd of about 250 supporters and the curious at the Opera House in Derry on Wednesday, December 15. The Opera House was packed from the main floor to the mezzanine with a crowd that skewed mostly young. In contrast, events with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney I attended attracted mostly middle-aged, middle-class burghers.
There was an excitement factor in the Ron Paul crowd missing from the other candidate events, even a Gingrich appearance in Windham that attracted up to a thousand people. Front-runners bring out big crowds in New Hampshire, but enthusiasm can't be faked.
Second Go-Round
For me, it was a second go-round with Paul. At the beginning of December, I saw him give his campaign pitch to a same-sized crowd in Nashua. That flock seemed to consist mostly of "true believers,, Pauline-converts of long-standing, whereas the Derry crowd seemed to consist of more undecided voters.
The Rasmussen Reports poll of December 12 put Paul in third place, polling 18 percent, four points below Gingrich. (Romney led with 33 percent.) I wanted to see him again to see if there were any changes to his campaign routine now that he was a contender.
Mitt Romney strikes one as robotic. There is very little difference in the man's demeanor at campaign stops. It all seems programmed.
The only thing similar, in the sense of being programmed about Ron Paul, is his cheap blue suit. It was the same Ron Paul that I've seen before, with the same beliefs and the same passions, but the beliefs and passions of a true believer. This is not someone who had been programmed that morning by a campaign consultant after the downloading of polling data.
There is genuineness about the man that is the anti-thesis of the male mannequin come-to-life that is Mitt Romney. Paul also lacks the low-cunning and theatricality of Newt Gingrich.
Jon Huntsman also is genuine, but he's modern and up-to-date in a way that Ron Paul, who is a cross between a Frank Capra movie character and Harry Truman, is not. If Huntsman is a 2011 BMW M3, Ron Paul is your grandfather's 1974 Buick Electra "deuce and a quarter", the one the old man complained about as the "feds" had mandated unsightly bumpers fore and aft.
Liberty
Ron Paul did not regurgitate "shtick," like some third-rate repertory stage actor going through the motions (kin to Ronald Reagan wannabes such as Rick Perry), but he did replay his central themes of limiting the federal government to maximize personal liberty.
"Liberty is the real issue," he declared, as economic growth is bound up in personal liberty.
"The politicians and bureaucrats don't know how to spend your money," he told an appreciative audience.
Ron Paul's anti-military stance was frequently on display. When asked if he would raise taxes under any circumstances, he demurred.
"You wouldn't have to raise taxes," he said, "if you give up being the policeman of the world."
He believes our military commitments undermine our security by eroding our economy. The American military subsidizes wealthy countries.
"Germany likes having our troops there," he said, because of the money they spend. "Bring them home, have them spend their money here and give us an economic boost."
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