Thousands of Ron Paul supporters gathered at The Waterford Hotel in Springfield, Virginia on Tuesday night for an event with Ron and his son Kentucky Senator Rand Paul to kick-off of Paul’s “Final Push” in Virginia.
Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates who will appear on Virginia’s primary ballot next Tuesday. Neither Rick Santorum nor Newt Gingrich will appear on the ballot because they failed to collect the 10,000 signatures required to appear on Virginia’s primary ballot.
While his opponents were competing in contests Paul knew he couldn’t win, Paul spent the evening in Virginia, where he fairs a better chance at winning because it will be a two-man race. Based on the size of the crowd, Romney could face a stiffer challenge in Virginia from Paul than he might have expected.
“This is a much bigger crowd than we expected,” a Paul representative told supporters eagerly awaiting Ron and Rand as he announced that the campaign was delaying the start time of the event to see if they could fit more people in the room.
“Hopefully the Fire Marshall will let some more people in the building,” he said.
The Fire Marshall confirmed to Red Alert Politics that 1,100 to 1,200 people were in the room at that time. Rand Paul later told the crowd that the Fire Marshall eventually let in 2,000 people, with 500 more people still wrapped around the building, but other sources with the campaign put the number inside closer to 1750.
It’s a good thing the event had an open bar. Some not so patient supporters began to get testy after the event had been delayed close to an hour and began chanting, “Ron Paul 2012, we will vote for no one else,” leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind whether Paul voters could necessarily be convinced to vote for the GOP nominee in November if it’s not Paul.
When Paul finally took the stage at exactly two hours after the event was scheduled to begin, the room reverberated with applause and shouting – shouting that rarely stopped during Paul’s speech.
Paul primarily spoke about his signature issues: Decreasing defense spending, the causes of the economic downturn, personal liberty, and of course, the Constitution.
“Our revolution is the American Revolution,” Paul told the crowd. He said we had “pretty good start” but our country has gotten away from the Constitution. “That is our goal – restore the American public to the American people.”
When Paul got to the section of his speech where he discussed the federal government’s constitutional right to enter into war the crowd began chanting, “Bring them home! “ To which Paul said, laughing, “You know all my lines!”
Paul told the crowd that the war on terrorism shouldn’t classify as a war because “to say that we’re in a war against terrorists wherever they are is to say that we’re in a war against the world,” he said. “That is not the way to win fiends. That is a way to build up enemies.”
He also decried the Patriot Act – which many other Republicans claim has allowed our country to successfully fight the war on terrorism.
“Next year we’re not going to call it ‘Repeal the Patriot Act,’ we’re going to call it ‘Restore the Fourth Amendment.’ ”
Paul said the police don’t even need search warrants anymore to enter your home.
“They’re busting into your houses, swat teams go in, and can you believe it, they go into the wrong houses often and they shoot and kill innocent people.”
“That’s TREASON,” a supporter shouted.
Paul went on to talk about entitlement reform and the need for people to take personal responsibility for paying their bills. He ended his speech with a thought on personal liberty and why it should be a unifying issue.
“Liberty should bring people together, not because we allow people do things we might not approve of,” he said to massive applause from the audience. “The whole point is we should let people join in because of liberty and let people be responsible for themselves.”
