Paul Attracts Crowd With 'Boston Tea Party'

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

This comes from thefacts.com

Paul attracts crowd with ‘Boston Tea Party'


FREEPORT — More than 600 people gathered in an open warehouse used for offloading freshly caught shrimp and filled the fishy smelling, chilly air with a passionate energy of idealism.

It was supposed to be a surprise, but word travels fast through an Internet-fueled campaign. With a passionate roar, the crowd applauded as Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul made his entrance.

Sunday’s Freeport fundraiser, a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party of 1773, was part of a national one-day “money bomb� fundraising phenomenon supporters said drew in more than $4 million for the campaign of the Lake Jackson congressman. The money raised rivals the Nov. 5 Guy Fawkes Day fundraisers, which garnered a record $4.3 million.

As a part of the day’s theme, supporters dressed as Native Americans and colonial revolutionariesheaved empty barrels emblazoned with the issues Paul advocates retracting federal involvement.

Mobilized by the presidential candidate’s uncompromising libertarian positions on the role of the federal government, our fiat money system, the federal income tax, the budget and the Iraq War, Paul has summoned a portion of the American pantheon of political ideas that has remained dormant since the Contract with America of 1994.

“You all have removed my apathy and my skepticism,� Paul said to his adoring audience. “I am much more optimistic than I was 12 years ago.�

Paul took the crowd through his stump speech, each of his ideals returning to the central theme of personal, economic and international liberty, surrounding and unifying each with a warm blanket of consistency.

His supporters came to Freeport from across the state, some from further, to the chilly hall on the docks with the shrimp boats. One woman, Lisa Pierce, came from Knoxville, Tenn. — a 15-hour drive — for the three-hour event.

The elderly sat with teens barely old enough to vote. The faces were black, Hispanic, Asian and white. There was no fear in their voices as they spoke boldly with each other about the way the country should be. Held close like a deeply held secret, Paul has brought them out of the disconnect they feel between what they know to be true and where the country has been led by the majority parties.

“I always voted for who they told you to,� said Ken Fawsett of Rockwall. “And we get the same thing every year; sometimes it’s a Democrat, and sometimes it’s a Republican.�

Start of something big

La Porte resident Brian Herrick, 20, said he caught on to Paul when he heard him on a radio show.

“I can’t remember what he was talking about, but I liked it and looked him up on YouTube,� Herrick said. “I’ve been a full-time supporter since.�

Sporting a sparse fuzz of facial hair, Herrick said he has converted both his parents, longtime supporters of President George W. Bush, and his girlfriend.

“I have already got both of them voting for Ron Paul,� Herrick said. “If you talk to old people, most of them know who he is, but it’s the young people that are really enthusiastic about him. The older people see us and get fired up, too.�

Herrick came to Freeport with a friend, Jesus Waldo, whom he met through the Houston-area Meetup.com group.

“None of this would have happened without Paul’s message. It really is attractive to a lot of people,� Herrick said.

Waldo, 22, a sophomore at Lee College in Baytown, said he has been a fan of Paul for a long time, but doesn’t expect change overnight.

“When I talk to my friends about Ron Paul, they say, ‘Even if he gets elected, nothing will change,’� Waldo said. “I tell them that change won’t happen overnight. There are a lot of congressmen and senators we have to get rid of.�

Herrick and Waldo said they were just excited to be a part of what they expect will blossom into a national movement — maybe not for the 2008 election, but the groundwork is being laid now.

“No matter what happens with the campaign, this is going to go past Ron Paul,� Herrick said. “His ideas are popular among the young generation.�

Charged up

In the spirit of the day, steel-eyed Houston criminal defense attorney Carl Haggard’s face was covered in multicolored war paint. His head was topped with a feather.

“I haven’t really been involved in politics for a long time,� Haggard said, his war paint starting to wipe onto the shirt collar peeking out of his sweater. “I voted for him in 1988, and I saw that he was running again.�

Haggard said he and his wife got together around Paul’s candidacy and shot an e-mail to the campaign through the Web site.

“I thought it would be a good idea for him to put up a video blog, like a few minutes long every once in a while directly on the net onto YouTube,� Haggard said. “In like 30 minutes they sent me an e-mail back that said ‘good suggestion’ and that they would forward it to their IT guy.�

Haggard was motivated after getting the feedback.

“I was charged up, and my feet haven’t hit the ground since,� he said.

He flitted toward another volunteer to grab some Ron Paul signs for his house. Since he lives in a subdivision governed by a fickle neighborhood association, he said he would have to dodge the rules by taping the signs on the inside of his windows.

“I don’t want any regrets. I don’t want to look back and say, ‘What if I gave just a little more,’ or ‘what if I worked just a little harder,’� Haggard said. “I don’t believe in the argument that he can’t win, but if we don’t help him, then he won’t.�

Hard work

Joe Cavazos, a retired city worker from Corpus Christi, just spent hours making a 4-by-8-foot Ron Paul sign from scratch.

He said he and two friends painted it, dug the post holes and put it up along South Padre Island Drive in Corpus Christi.

“I’ve been with the Meetup group since late October,� Cavazos said. “My two daughters going to Texas A&M called me and told me about Ron Paul in early October. I didn’t know who he was before then, now I’m helping him become the next president.�

Dressed in the garb of a colonial woman, Carrie Snuske, a homemaker from Spring, was spreading her support for Paul on wheels.

“I have a pickup with a large A-frame sign in the back. I’ve been riding in parades all over the place,� Snuske said.

Internet phenomenon

Paul’s supporters have turned the Internet into his greatest tool, melting his message into the diverse pot of cultures making up America. His libertarian positions grow from his belief in a common underlying understanding of how government should serve its citizenry in the limited role, which Paul says is specifically defined in the Constitution.

“It’s organic, you can’t stop it once it catches on,� said marine radar electronics technician Allan Gifford of Jones Creek. “But if you don’t have a message, then none of this is going to happen spontaneously like it is. You have to force it, and the world doesn’t work like that.�

Gifford was manning a table in the back of the hall with a laptop, feeding the live numbers of the campaign’s national fundraising total. Early in the afternoon, the campaign broke $15 million for the quarter.

“It’s pretty humbling,� Paul said of his feelings in the hours before he passed his own single-day record.

Like the Nov. 5 Guy Fawkes Day fundraiser, re-enactments like that in Freeport drew crowds throughout the nation.

“I see hundreds here, but I know that across America there are events just like this going on,� said Paul’s son, Robert Paul, at the Freeport rally. “The media, or rather the big business that controls it, doesn’t want Ron to win. So we’re creating our own media, our own noise, and then the mainstream attention will follow. The Internet is an equalizer, it gets our message past the gatekeepers.�

After autographing anything and everything thrust at him by his supporters, Paul went over to the docks to toss a barrel from the shrimp boat.

Picking up the “IRAQ WAR� barrel and holding it above his head, Paul gave a “heave ho� and it went into the river. The next supporter reeled it back in by the rope it was tied to, and the tea party continued.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whether you like Ron Paul or not, you have to admit that this is a good thing for our country. People who have never voted at all are passionate about politics now.

God

Super Moderator

I started to read but then seen the lenght of it. If i got the gist of it they dumped stuff into the ocean? How is that a good thing? Does he not know that the BTP damaged the oceans a hell of a lot?

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

They dumped an empty barrel with ropes tied to it and then pulled them back in to shore.

It was just symbolic.

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

He is good at blowing smoke up our asses is about all I am getting from him.

What a waste of time and money.....

chops

with Paul there is no smoke. He has always voted consistant with his beliefs not with his party, in fact he voted against the war as a republican. Check every other politician, none of them back up their words half as much as Paul does.

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

Congressman Paul is the only straight talker in the Presidential campaign.

All the other candidates say what they think the public wants to hear, Congressman Paul says what he truly believes. That appears to be what a substantial amount of the public believes as well.

Even if Congressman Paul doesn't win, America will win. This is the start of something big in America.