Ron Paul no third party candidate - budget process 'fake'

No surprises in late night TV appearance

Ron Paul didn't get a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention because, he told Jay Leno, “the tent isn't big enough.”

He praised Clint Eastwood for saying we marched into Afghanistan, “and we can march back out.” Other than that, Mr. Eastwood's remark was the only talk about the war during the convention, he pointed out.

Besides, most Americans “Deep down, most Americans know war isn't what they want...It isn't good for us.”

He asked the comedian, “How many times do you see a presidential candidate booed...I was booed for saying that.”

When it comes to the budget, he reminded Mr. Leno, “I voted against the Ryan budget...It's all fake.” If you cut spending, he reminded viewers, you're really just cutting an automatic 30 to 40 percent increase built into the budgetary process, anyway.

As to whether he will run as a third party candidate, he said, “I'll just keep plugging along.”

Third party candidacies are not healthy. Had he done that to start with, “I probably wouldn't have gotten on your show.”

Though Mr. Leno prodded him gently about serving as a third party candidate – obviously, to split the Republican vote – he grinned broadly, and said, “I have to rest up for 2016.” 

Mark Twain on the war in the Philppines, 1901:

We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag. And so, by these Providences of God - and the phrase is the government's, not mine - we are a World Power.