Politics

Ron Paul reacts to Romney, Eastwood GOP convention performances

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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While many of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s supporters were waging a fight at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., to have their delegates counted, Paul himself was watching what Mitt Romney had to say.

In an interview that aired on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop with Betty Liu” on Friday, Paul said Romney’s Thursday night speech had some good qualities, but that Romney didn’t address all of the issues he would have liked.

“The speech is what I would expect,” Paul said. “It was upbeat, and the people there loved it, but I remain very, very skeptical of hearing anything that will change the course of history. We have a debt problem. We have a spending problem, but how many things did he list to cut? The most disturbing thing is of course the engine of our problem is the Federal Reserve. There was no talk of the Federal Reserve. One of the engines of spending is militarism and empire and he enhanced it. He was on pushing it.”

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Paul also said that Clint Eastwood’s performance on the stage in Tampa probably made Romney’s supporters “pretty unhappy” by mentioning the war in Afghanistan.

“Clint Eastwood said a few things in his speech,” Paul said. “That may be the reason that the Romney people were unhappy because he was complaining about Obama saying he was going to get out of Afghanistan. He said why do they come out tomorrow? He also said you were going to close down Guantanamo, you did not do that. I think the Romney people might be pretty unhappy because Clint Eastwood was suggesting maybe we should have a change in policy.”

Paul offered no indication that he would support Romney’s candidacy.

“I do not see where there was any significant change in policy,” Paul said. “It was positive and upbeat and pro-American, but no change in economic policy or spending. Hopefully he is right and he’s going to create all these jobs, but quite frankly, only the market creates jobs. Governments can’t and presidents don’t do it.”

Later in the Bloomberg appearance, Paul said the Republican Party “is not my party.”

“I do not like politics at all,” said Paul. “I think both parties are Keynesian economists, and support positions that I do not like. So, the party, in many ways is irrelevant.”

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