Please, Not Ron Paul

John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Paul Mirengoff of the respected Powerline blog and Andrew Walden, who writes for the American Thinker, join me in our dismay that someone like Ron Paul, who draws his main support from nasty extremist groups he never disavows, should draw the most votes in a straw poll for president at last week’s CPAC conference.

This man, Paul, could bring down the whole Tea Party movement and endanger projected gains for the Republican Party this year if he is taken seriously by too many people.

Andrew Walden pubished an exxtensive review of Ron Paul’s problems in 2007. Here is a reprint of that article; there are many other trusted sources who have similar concerns about Ron Paul.

The Ron Paul Campaign and its Neo-Nazi Supporters

By Andrew Walden November 14, 2007 The American Thinker

When some in a crowd of anti-war activists meeting at Democrat National Committee HQ in June, 2005 suggested Israel was behind the 9-11 attacks, DNC Chair Howard Dean was quick to get behind the microphones and denounce them saying: "such statements are nothing but vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric."

When KKK leader David Duke switched parties to run for Louisiana governor as a Republican in 1991, then-President George H W Bush responded sharply, saying, "When someone asserts the Holocaust never took place, then I don't believe that person ever deserves one iota of public trust. When someone has so recently endorsed Nazism, it is inconceivable that someone can reasonably aspire to a leadership role in a free society."

Ron Paul is different.

Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) is the only Republican candidate to demand immediate withdrawal from Iraq and blame US policy for creating Islamic terrorism. He has risen from obscurity and is beginning to raise millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Paul has no traction in the polls -- 7% of the vote in New Hampshire -- but he at one point had more cash on hand than John McCain. And now he is planning a $1.1 million New Hampshire media blitz just in time for the primary.

Ron Paul set an internet campaigning record raising more than $4 million in small on-line donations in one day, on November 5, 2007. But there are many questions about Paul's apparent unwillingness to reject extremist groups' public participation in his campaign and financial support of his November 5 "patriot money-bomb plot."

On October 26 nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Medved posted an "Open Letter to Rep. Ron Paul" on TownHall.com. It reads:
Dear Congressman Paul:

Your Presidential campaign has drawn the enthusiastic support of an imposing collection of Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 "Truthers" and other paranoid and discredited conspiracists.

Do you welcome- or repudiate - the support of such factions?

More specifically, your columns have been featured for several years in the American Free Press -a publication of the nation's leading Holocaust Denier and anti-Semitic agitator, Willis Carto. His book club even recommends works that glorify the Nazi SS, and glowingly describe the "comforts and amenities" provided for inmates of Auschwitz.

Have your columns appeared in the American Free Press with your knowledge and approval?

As a Presidential candidate, will you now disassociate yourself, clearly and publicly, from the poisonous propaganda promoted in such publications?

As a guest on my syndicated radio show, you answered my questions directly and fearlessly.
Will you now answer these pressing questions, and eliminate all associations between your campaign and some of the most loathsome fringe groups in American society?

Along with my listeners (and many of your own supporters), I eagerly await your response.

Respectfully, Michael Medved
Medved has received no official response from the Paul campaign.

There is more. The Texas-based Lone Star Times October 25 publicly requested a response to questions about whether the Paul campaign would repudiate and reject a $500 donation from white supremacist Stormfront.org founder Don Black and end the Stormfront website fundraising for Paul. The Times article lit up the conservative blogosphere for the next week. Paul supporters packed internet comment boards alternately denouncing or excusing the charges. Most politicians are quick to distance themselves from such disreputable donations when they are discovered. Not Paul.

Daniel Siederaski of the Jewish Telegraph Agency tried to get an interview with Paul, calling him repeatedly but not receiving any return calls. Wrote Siederaski November 9: "Ron Paul will take money from Nazis. But he won’t take telephone calls from Jews." [Update] Finally on November 13 the Paul campaign responded. In a short interview JTA quotes Jim Perry, head of Jews for Paul describing his work on the Paul campaign along side a self-described white supremacist which Perry says he has reformed.

Racist ties exposed in the Times article go far beyond a single donation. Just below links to information about the "BOK KKK Ohio State Meeting", and the "BOK KKK Pennsylvania State Meeting", Stormfront.org website announced: "Ron Paul for President" and "Countdown to the 5th of November". The links take readers directly to a Ron Paul fundraising site from which they can click into the official Ron Paul 2008 donation page on the official campaign site. Like many white supremacists,Stormfront has ties to white prison gangs.

Finally on October 30 Paul's campaign came back with a non-response. In a phone interview with the Lone Star Times, Ron Paul national communications director Jesse Benton was non-committal about removing the donations link from Stormfront.org. After a week of internet controversy, the best Benton could come up with is:
"We hadn't thought of these options but I'll bring up these ideas with the campaign director. Blocking the IP address sounds like a simple and practical step that could be taken. I doubt there is anything we can do legally. Tracking donations that came from Stormfront's site sounds more complicated. I'm concerned about setting a precedent for the campaign having to screen and vet everyone who makes a donation. It is important to keep in mind is (sic) that we didn't solicit this support, and we aren't interested in spending al of our time and resources focused on this issue. We want to focus on Dr. Paul's positive agenda for freedom."
Perhaps frustrated by the weasel words, Lone Star Times asked Benton: "Bottom line- Will the Ron Paul campaign be rejecting the $500 contribution made by neo-Nazi Don Black?"

Benton's response:
"At this time, I cannot say that we will be rejecting Mr. Black's contribution, but I will bring the matter to the attention of our campaign director again, and expect some sort of decision to be made in coming days."

On October 11 Stormfront Radio endorsed Ron Paul for President saying:
"Whatever organization you belong to, remember first and foremost that you're a white nationalist, then put aside your differences with one another and work together. Work together to strive to get someone in the Oval Office who agrees with much of what we want for our future. Look at the man, look at the issues, look at our future. Vote for Ron Paul, 2008."

As of November 11--the Ron Paul donation link is still up and active on Stormfront. No IP address has been blocked. Stormfront's would-be stormtroopers are still encouraged to contribute to Paul's campaign.

The white supremacists do more than raise funds. Blogger Adam Holland reports:
"one of Rep. Paul's top internet organizers in Tennessee is a neo-Nazi leader named Will Williams (aka ‘White Will'). Williams was the southern coordinator for William Pierce's National Alliance Party, the largest neo-Nazi party in the U.S."

Pierce is author of the racist "Turner Diaries". When the Lone Star Times exposed the $500 Don Black donation, Williams responded on the national Ron Paul meetup site,
"Must Dr. Paul capitulate to our Jewish masters' demands?"

The mild responses to Williams' MeetUp post make a sharp contrast to the hatred and invective with which Paul supporters respond to Medved or any other writer questioning Paul's refusal to disassociate himself from his racist supporters. Any other campaign would presume Williams' expression of anti-Semitism was a dirty trick by an opposing campaign. Williams would have been hurriedly denounced and booted out of the campaign. Not Ron Paul.

Williams has also organized at least one other discussion, "the Israel factor revisited"on the national Ron Paul MeetUp site. Again the measured tone of the remarks by Ron Paul supporters in the comments section contrasts sharply with the invective Paul supporters rain down upon bloggers who oppose him. Paul's campaign relies heavily on MeetUp sites to organize. Over 61,000 Paul supporters are registered on MeetUp as compared to 3,400 for Barack Obama, 1,000 for Hillary Clinton, 1,800 for Dennis Kucinich and only a couple of dozen members for most other candidates.

On the white-supremacist Vanguard News Network, Williams links to Paul's "grassroots" fundraising site and organizes other racists to "game You Tube" to advance a specific Ron Paul video to the top of You Tube's rankings. Writes Williams, "Everybody here can do this, except bjb w/his niggerberry." Holland points out, "BJB" stands for "burn Jew burn". BJB's internet signature is, "Nothing says lovin' like a Jew in the oven."

Williams is not Paul's only supremacist supporter. "Former" KKK leader (and convicted fraudster) David Duke's website http://www.whitecivilrights.com/, calls Ron Paul "our king" and cheers while "Ron Paul Hits a Home Run on Jay Leno Show." Duke also includes a "Ron Paul campaign update" and plugs Ron Paul fundraising efforts. These articles are posted right next to articles such as "Ten reasons why the Holocaust is a fraud" and "Germans Still Remember their Historical Greatness"-featuring a map of Hitler's Third Reich at its 1942 military height, just in case anybody doesn't get the point. Apparently "Dr. Paul's positive agenda for freedom" is attractive to those who ape the world's worst tyrants and genocidaires.

There are others. In a You Tube video circulating the internet, Ron Paul is endorsed by Hutton Gibson, a leading Holocaust denier and father of controversial actor and director Mel Gibson.

Ron Paul is supported by Patrick Buchanan, whose website carries videos and articles such as: "Ron Paul epiphany" and "Ron Paul a new hope." Buchanan has a long history of remarks some call anti-Semitic (see link). Ron Unz, editor of Buchanan's American Conservative magazine, is a Paul contributor and may have helped raise money from Silicon Valley sources.

Ron Paul's American Free Press supporters run literally from one end of the country to the other:
• A Maine Ron Paul MeetUp activist who once ran for US Senate describes himself as, "a 911 truth researcher & video documentarian, & a writer for The Barnes Review." The Barnes Review is a Holocaust-denier magazine founded by Willis Carto.
• A Hawaii Ron Paul MeetUp organizer is pictured here pumping the Paul campaign and selling copies of Willis Carto's American Free Press at a farmers market.

There is more to the Paul campaign than racists. The mis-named 9-11 "truth" movement has also been a big source of Paul support. The Detroit Free Pressdescribes the scene as Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani shared theferry ride back from a Mackinac Island Michigan Republican caucus September 21.

"According to one eyewitness, Giuliani was beset by dozens of Paul enthusiasts as he was leaving the island, some of whom shouted taunts about 9/11, including: ‘9/11 was an inside job' and ‘Rudy, Rudy, what did you do with the gold?' -- an apparent reference to rumors about $200 million in gold alleged to have disappeared in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Ed Wyszynski, a longtime party activist from Eagle, (MI) said the Paul supporters threatened to throw Giuliani overboard and harassed him as he took shelter in the ferry's pilothouse for the 15-minute journey back to Mackinaw City."

To read more of this report, go here.