--- title: Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP description: There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6935933/why-ron-paul-scares-the-gop/ author: Michael Grunwald article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2008-03-20T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T05:09:37.843Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP og:description: There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6935933/why-ron-paul-scares-the-gop/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb950d457131c9acf/698a4e95e6e84ae28c2b21a2/360_ron_paul_0320.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_ron_paul_0320.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP twitter:description: There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb950d457131c9acf/698a4e95e6e84ae28c2b21a2/360_ron_paul_0320.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Politics](/section/politics/) # Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f40fabae-0c51-4302-bad5-6b577ca8397a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Monday to Saturday (3x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Philip Elliott, Senior Correspondent | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership The policy influence ecosystem. A policy-focused audience spanning government, public affairs, advocacy, law, research, political media, and the institutions that make, interpret and respond to public policy. ### TIME D.C. Brief: key statements * D.C. Brief is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * D.C. Brief is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f40fabae-0c51-4302-bad5-6b577ca8397a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/subscribe?i=f40fabae-0c51-4302-bad5-6b577ca8397a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is TIME's politics newsletter? D.C. Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Michael Grunwald](https://time.com/author/michael-grunwald/) Mar 20, 2008 4:00 AM UTC  Ron Paul Ron Paul Eric Thayer / Getty by [Michael Grunwald](https://time.com/author/michael-grunwald/) Mar 20, 2008 4:00 AM UTC There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives and limited intervention in foreign affairs. That organization was known as the Republican Party. But the only one of those beliefs that still motivates the G.O.P. establishment is limited taxes. In 2008, people who still hold all of them joined the [Ron Paul Revolution](/time/politics/article/0,8599,1678661,00.html). But now the revolution is ebbing. Congressman Paul’s new campaign finance report shows that he’s raised nearly $35 million, including more than any other Republican candidate in the fourth quarter of 2007, and he’s inspired remarkable passion among the kind of diehards who hold up campaign signs on highway overpasses and post irate comments on obscure blogs. But the presidency isn’t decided on YouTube or Technorati. Paul didn’t win any Republican primaries, and he recently conceded that “victory in the conventional sense is not available.” Of course, nothing in Paul’s world is ever done in the conventional sense, so he has refused to drop out of the race and endorse the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, Senator John McCain. Instead he argues that all Republicans should have “the right to vote for someone that stands for traditional Republican principles.” And he’s got a point. The real significance of the Paul campaign is not the ubiquitous bumper stickers and lawn signs or the online fund-raising records ($6 million in one day, plus another $4 million, hilariously, on Guy Fawkes Day) but the mirror Paul held up to the modern Republican Party. When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conservative about sending thousands of young Americans to try to transform the Middle East. In some ways, Paul is a throwback to the frugal and isolationist wing of the old Republican Party, the fuddy-duddy GOP of [Robert Taft](/time/covers/0,16641,1101520602,00.html) and Calvin Coolidge. His fiscal policies evoke the idealistic Republican revolutionaries who seized control of Congress in 1994; he wants to abolish the IRS, the Departments of Homeland Security, Education and Energy, and most of the federal government. He refuses to vote for unbalanced budgets, and he has opposed spending taxpayer dollars on Congressional Medals of Honor, even for Rosa Parks or Pope John Paul II. Typically, his campaign has reported no debts, and still has more than $5 million in the bank. Meanwhile, Paul’s foreign policies evoke candidate George W. Bush’s call for a “humbler foreign policy” in 2000, although Paul goes much further; not only did he oppose U.S. involvement in Iraq, Kosovo and the war on drugs, he opposes U.S. involvement in the United Nations and NATO. Under Bush’s leadership, of course, the Republican Party has been anything but frugal and anything but isolationist. The congressional Republican revolutionaries seemed to lose their zeal for shrinking the federal government once they controlled it, which is one reason voters expelled them from power in 2006\. And these days, it’s usually Democrats who call for a humbler foreign policy. Paul’s leave-us-alone libertarianism hasn’t fit in with a party anxious to read our e-mail, improve our values, assert American power abroad and subsidize friendly industries at home. The party’s recent mix of “national greatness” neoconservatives, evangelical theoconservatives and K Street careerists has had many goals, but leaving people alone hasn’t been one of them. That’s why Paul was the one getting booed at G.O.P. debates. And that’s one reason why Paul’s fervent followers were banned from the activist Republican website RedState. In fairness, though, another reason RedState’s directors got tired of the Paulistas was that so many of them seemed — what’s the polite word? — nuts. Paul’s supporters aren’t all black-helicopter paranoiacs, but the black-helicopter paranoiacs sure do support Ron Paul. The controversy over a few racist articles in his old newsletters was probably overblown; there’s no evidence that Paul himself was ever a racist. But he is an extremist — partly in the Barry Goldwater extremism-in-defense-of-liberty-is-no-vice sense of the word, but also in the wacky let’s-relitigate-the-currency-debates-of-the-1820s sense of the word. The late William F. Buckley wanted conservatives to stand athwart history yelling stop; Paul seems to want to slam history into reverse. The guy genuinely wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and start circulating gold again. Still, even if you set aside Paul’s kookier ideas, there just doesn’t seem to be a road to the White House for any candidate who opposes the war in Iraq as well as higher taxes, the war on drugs as well as higher spending, restrictions on privacy as well as restrictions on guns. That’s a real “freedom agenda,” a true assault on big government, and while it clearly spoke to some angry dudes with high-speed web connections and time on their hands, it’s just as clearly not where America stands today. Paul didn’t have a lot of company on the House floor when he rose recently to complain about government overreach in the investigation of the disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned after revelations that he had been a customer of a high-end prostitution ring. But even if Paul’s ideological purity is never going to get him to the White House, it does help illuminate the impurities — and sometimes the hypocrisies — of today’s Republicans, just as Ralph Nader can do for the Democrats. The G.O.P. candidates all claimed to defend taxpayers, but Paul was the only one who refused to accept a taxpayer-funded pension or taxpayer-funded junkets. The candidates all talked about shrinking big government, but Paul was the only one who included the Pentagon and NSA wiretaps and petroleum subsidies in his definition. Bush’s approval ratings have been abysmal for years, but Paul was the only Republican who really campaigned for change. And in doing so Paul illustrated what was so striking about the Republican race. The leading candidates had all strayed from Bush and current orthodoxy in the past — Rudy Giuliani on abortion and gay rights, John McCain on tax cuts, torture, health care and campaign finance, Mitt Romney on just about everything. But while Paul was getting attacked every time he called for a new direction, the rest spent the primaries minimizing and renouncing their previous departures, implicitly promising four more years of Bushism. McCain is lucky he has some time to craft a new message, because that’s not where America stands today, either. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6935933/why-ron-paul-scares-the-gop/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6935933/why-ron-paul-scares-the-gop/"},"headline":"Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP","datePublished":"2008-03-20T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T05:09:37.843Z","description":"There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6935933/why-ron-paul-scares-the-gop/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb950d457131c9acf/698a4e95e6e84ae28c2b21a2/360_ron_paul_0320.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michael Grunwald","url":"https://time.com/author/michael-grunwald/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb950d457131c9acf/698a4e95e6e84ae28c2b21a2/360_ron_paul_0320.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_ron_paul_0320.jpg","caption":"Ron Paul","creditText":"Eric Thayer / Getty","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6935933/why-ron-paul-scares-the-gop/","name":"Why Ron Paul Scares the GOP"}}]}] ```