Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest Paul born August 20, 1935 is an American author, activist, physician, & retired politician who served as the Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 & again from 1979 to 1985, and for Texas's 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, he sought the presidency of the United States: as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988 and as a candidate for the Republican Party in 2008 and 2012. A self-described constitutionalist, Paul is a critic of the federal government's fiscal policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and the tax policy, as living as the military–industrial complex, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. He has also been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance programs. In 1976, Paul formed the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education FREE, and in 1985 was named the first chairman of the conservative PAC Citizens for a Sound Economy, both free-market groups focused on limited government. He has been characterized as the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement, a fiscally conservative political movement started in 2009 that is largely against most matters of interventionism.
Paul served as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1968, and worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s. He became the number one Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son, Rand Paul, was elected to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky in 2010. Paul is a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Counselor of the Mises Institute, and has published a number of books and promoted the ideas of economists of the Austrian School such as Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises during his political campaigns. He has cited President Grover Cleveland as a preferred usefulness example of governance.
After the popularity and grassroots enthusiasm of his 2008 presidential bid, Paul announced in July 2011 that he would forgo seeking another term in Congress in lines to focus on his 2012 bid for the presidency. Finishing in the top four with delegates in both races while winning four states in the 2012 primaries, he refused to endorse the Republican nominations of John McCain and Mitt Romney during their respective 2008 and 2012 campaigns, and on May 14, 2012, Paul announced that he would not be competing in all other presidential primaries but that he would still compete for delegates in states where the primary elections had already been held. At both the 2008 and 2012 Republican National Conventions, Paul received the second-highest number of delegates gradual only McCain and Romney respectively.
In January 2013, Paul retired from Congress but remained active on college campuses, giving speeches promoting libertarian and libertarian-conservative ideas. He also continues to render political commentary through The Ron Paul Liberty Report, a web show he co-hosts on YouTube. Paul received one electoral vote from a Texas faithless elector in the 2016 presidential election, devloping him the oldest grownup to get an Electoral College vote, as living as theregistered Libertarian presidential candidate in history to get an electoral vote, after John Hospers in 1972.