http://www.tnr.com/…

The first thing I learned from driving around Nevada with Ron Paul for a couple of days: People really hate the Federal Reserve. This became clear midway through a speech Paul was giving to a group of Republicans at a community center in Pahrump, a dusty town about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. Pahrump is known for its legal brothels (Heidi Fleiss lives there), but most of the people in the audience looked more like ranchers than swingers. They stood five deep at the back of the room and listened politely as the candidate spoke.

Until Paul got to the part about the Fed. “We need a much better monetary system,” he said, a system based on “sound money, money that’s backed by something.” Paul, who is small and delicate and has a high voice, spoke in a near monotone, making no effort to excite the audience. They cheered anyway. Then he said this: “The Constitution gives no authority for a central bank.” The crowd went wild, or as wild as a group of sober Republicans can on a Monday night. They hooted and yelled and stomped their feet. Paul stopped speaking for a moment, his words drowned out. Then he continued on about monetary policy.

Wow, I thought. The constitutionality of a central bank is not an issue you see on many lists of voter concerns. (How many pollsters would think to ask about it? How many voters would understand the question?) Yet a room full of non-economists had just responded feverishly when Paul brought it up. Hoping for some context, I went outside and found a Paul staffer. He didn’t sound surprised when I told him about the speech. “It’s our biggest applause line,” he said.

I’m a bit conflicted about this article. I’ve watched Tucker say he’s going to vote for Paul, say Paul’s Christmas ad is the only authentic one, and generally seems to fawn over him. But at times in his article he seems to poke fun at Paul or at least his supporters. That can be excused… I’m sure he ran into some interesting folks on his trip with Paul. But things like inviting the brothel owner seem almost like a setup. We all know that Paul doesn’t care nor does his supporters but those who aren’t supporters may be turned off and Tucker knows or should have known that. Ignoring that however the article is quite good. I’m glad we have someone in the MSM who appears to actually support Dr. Paul… just don’t know how many actually pay attention to him.

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