Ron Paul's populist pitch plays well in St. Cloud

SAINT CLOUD, Minn. -- Congressman Ron Paul's libertarian brand of populist Republican politics played well with college students in St. Cloud Monday.

The Texan's appearance at the River's Edge Convention Center downtown drew at least 500 supporters. The crowd, which skewed heavily into 20-something demographic, was drawn to Paul's unique take on foreign policy and the monetary system.

"It seems like every politician I hear in a debate seems to want to evade questions, whereas Ron Paul will answer the questions in very straight language," Tanner Bailey of Bemidji told KARE.

And Rep. Paul didn't disappoint when he took the stage. The retired physician and obstetrician offered a simple prescription for what ails the political system.

"The people are realizing it's not working. We're going to replace it with something. And I know exactly what we're going to replace it with and that is freedom!"

Another Paul supporter, Jon Scheler, said Paul's hands-off approach to global intervention appealed to him.

"I'm a veteran who was called back to active duty in the latest war," Scheler said. 'I was really was looking for an anti-war, conservative Republican candidate and Ron Paul was the guy."

Paul doesn't call himself an anti-war candidate, but does assert that American involvement in wars outside US borders should be limited to the strict interpretation of the US Constitution.

"Just because somebody's running a country six thousand miles away from us, and they're not running it the way they should, it doesn't give us the right to do what they call preemptive war," Paul told his supporters.

"A preemptive war is equivalent to aggression. That is not in the constitution, and it ought to be rejected!"

Paul was introduced by supporter and conservative radio host Sue Jeffers as, "The Thomas Jefferson of our times." She described him as one national political figure who has remained consistent in his views, and never has to explain away his voting record.

State coordinator Marianne Stebbins urged Paul's backers to follow through Tuesday by taking part in the precinct caucuses.  She said a victory in Minnesota would be a "game changer" by putting Paul on par with the other three major Republicans, who have all notched a victory in the primary season.

The presidential preference straw polls at those caucuses are not binding, in terms of apportioning Minnesota's delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa later this year.

But for those candidates trying to present themselves as a viable alternative to frontrunner Mitt Romney, any victory in February is crucial.   Paul was the first of the surviving candidates to campaign in Minnesota and has spent more time on the ground than any other.

Pennsylvanian Rick Santorum, however, is buying TV ads in major markets and has made a half dozen stops in Minnesota in the past week. He's calling on conservative Republicans to coalesce around him, and re-write the "news media" script of Romney's inevitable nomination.

In a health policy speech in Rochester Monday, Santorum said that Romney can't mount a credible challenge to President Obama because federal health reform was modeled, to some degree, after the Massachusetts health plan Romney signed into law as governor of that state.

"Governor Romney is absolutely incapable of making the case against Obama Care successfully, and therefore greatly damages our ability to be able to be able to win this election," Santorum remarked. 

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