Commentary on Ron Paul mentions student support

A recent commentary in The Washington Times mentioned Liberty University as a place where U.S. Rep. Ron Paul has garnered support.

In his opinion piece titled “PAUL: Ron Paul Revolution: GOP’s last best hope,” Paul’ s son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, writes that he has been “amazed” at the diversity of people who admire his father.

“At rallies around the country, from the liberal bastion of Berkeley, Calif., where 8,000 students came to an event, to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, kids from all over the political spectrum came to listen to Ron Paul,” Rand Paul writes.

He contradicts his father’s own remark that he would remain nameless in the pages of history (which was made during a farewell address when Paul left Congress for the first time in 1984).

“My father’s imprint will not be in Washington but in the minds of the millions of today’s youth who found the message of liberty through a certain congressman from Texas,” he writes.

“For inspiring a new generation to love the ideas of liberty, we all owe a debt of gratitude to my father, the champion of liberty, Ron Paul.”

Ron Paul last spoke at Liberty in February 2008 in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He drew a crowd of supporters then, using his Convocation message to point out key issues of his platform: a Sanctity of Life Resolution for stopping abortion, paying down the national debt, sound money, repealing the income tax, withdrawal of troops from Iraq, free markets, and limited government.

He told the university news service at the time that he felt the younger generation was backing him because “they are getting a bum rap.”

“They’re inheriting a situation that is wearing out and I am offering a solution to what they see is coming,” he said.

When Liberty’s new on-campus voting precinct opened for the first time in March for the 2012 Republican presidential primary, with Gov. Mitt Romney and Paul on the ballot, Paul took 60 percent of the 590 votes cast.