Ron Paul is a baby elephant

Ron Paul is a baby elephant
Salon.com
December 3, 2007



From around the country, Ron Paul's followers are descending on New Hampshire to go door-to-door for their man. But what do they really want?

Read the whole article here or at www.salon.com's main page on Monday December 3rd:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/03/ron_paul/

Here's part of the article explaining the title:

"In elementary school, I fell in love with the idea of America," he says, adding that he is not sure he will be able to afford staying in New Hampshire through January. "I tell people I can't afford to do it, but I can't afford not to do it."

But perhaps the best explanation of the Paul phenomenon came from Rammelkamp, the young man from Long Island who had taken on significant credit card debt for the Paul campaign. He told me that to understand Paul, I had to think of the American people as a baby elephant, chained to a tree. "It realizes that it can only walk 5 feet in each direction. It realizes that it is a slave. When it grows old enough, it is strong enough to break away from the tree. But it doesn't know." He pauses, to let this sink in -- the American people are a captive animal unaware of its own power to claim liberty. "When was the last time you tried it?" he asks me of breaking free. "Maybe you are strong enough."

And so for thousands of his supporters, Paul has begun to symbolize freedom itself. He is the baby elephant who broke his chains, the Guy Fawkes for a new millennium. And with his candidacy, his supporters believe he shows a way out of the morass in Iraq, a way away from the burden of taxation and the fear of economic insecurity, a way to strike back against the creeping power of the federal government and the free-spending culture of Washington. He is a political savior for people who feel trapped by two political parties that have failed to solve the nation's problems, by a political dialogue that often skirts the real issues, and by a federal government that expands its power by marketing fear. Ron Paul, they hope, is the way out. "It's like do or die," says Linda Hannan, a 35-year-old paralegal from Staten Island, N.Y., as the Murphy's celebrations continue. "Liberty and freedom are our future."



http://youtube.com/watch?v=LTj3STZqviY