Ron Paul’s stunning landslide victory in the CPAC straw poll is an event that cannot be allowed to go to waste. Political moments this ripe are about as rare as the California condor, and Ron Paul would do us all an incalculable service if he would seize the day, and declare his intention to run in the 2012 presidential election. He needs to do this right now. Not next month, not next year, but now.

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Just imagine the effect that an announcement of candidacy would do for the Paulian revolution right now. As the only declared candidate for president in 2012 and the winner of the CPAC straw poll, he would immediately garner widespread media attention. Not only would he be the only declared candidate at the moment, but he might even be the only declared presidential candidate for the next eleven months. To have the field completely free of challengers and a fearsome grassroots electioneering and fundraising machine already in place is the political strategist’s Holy Grail. All Ron Paul has to do is tell the world he is running in 2012, and his entire movement will spring to life without any challengers standing in his way.

The fear and loathing Ron Paul would instill in the powers that be cannot be overstated. In their terrified stupor, the Republican leadership would search far and wide to find a sufficiently servile sock puppet to trot out to oppose Dr. Paul. All they would find, however, is a Mormon version of Ted Kennedy, an old man from Arizona who is clearly off his rocker, and a woman who can’t figure out what she stands for, besides war. The situation for Dr. Paul would only brighten if the Republican National Committee were to push for an early announcement of candidacy from one of these clowns. Indeed, the best possible outcome for Dr. Paul and the movement would be to force the RNC’s hand to pick one of these idiots sooner rather than later. The front-running idiot at the moment is the Mormon version of Ted Kennedy who loves socialized medicine. Life would be good indeed if Dr. Paul could induce the RNC to throw its weight behind a man who supports socialized medicine. That would ensure a Ron Paul run against Barack Obama in 2012!

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The paroxysms of fear that would grip the Obama administration would be equally great, because Ron Paul is actually committed to ending our murderous foreign empire. Obama won the last election on the "peace platform," which was possible only because he was running against a crazy old man, hell-bent on even more war than Bush II. In such company, Obama looked like a "peace candidate." In the company of Dr. Paul, however, Obama can be seen for what he is; namely, a card-carrying member of the same war party that includes Bush II. If Obama knew at this early point that he could possibly be facing Ron Paul in 2012, he would have to start changing his perpetual-war policies right now in order to stand a chance against the real "peace candidate" in two years. Nor could he continue to indulge in his lunatic Keynesianism-meets-corporatism economic policies, because Ron Paul the presidential candidate would publicly expose it all as the quackery it is. Ron Paul is Obama’s worst nightmare in 2012.

Perhaps most importantly, however, is the hope that his early announcement would give to the American people. For, without Dr. Paul as a candidate in 2012, we will be left with only the most cynical and dreadful of options. We will be faced with a so-called "peace candidate" who is wholly devoted to war, and a mainstream Republican candidate who is devoted to war coupled with torture and assassination. We will be faced with a socialist incumbent, and a mainstream Republican candidate devoted to corporate welfare and succoring the military-industrial complex. Without Dr. Paul in the mix, these will be our only options: war + socialism, or war + torture + economic fascism. There will be no hope for freedom and peace.

The need is great for you, Dr. Paul, and the moment will never be so ripe for you to announce your candidacy. Seize the moment and awaken the slumbering revolutionaries who are waiting for you to say the word and give them hope in 2012. The murmurs and whispers that you might run in 2012 will give way to a groundswell of support that will make the very Earth tremble. Please give us what we want and need in the depths of depression and war, the hope that liberty and peace can still be attained in our lifetime.

RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT IN 2012!

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