There is no uplifting imagery in GOP hopeful Ron Paul’s stump speech. Paul's 1,000 points of darkness

MEREDITH, N.H. — It’s a nation that permits the assassination of private citizens, a place where the military can arrest you at will. The unemployment rate is higher than officials let on. The economy is careening toward crisis. Violent street demonstrations are on the horizon. The government edges toward tyranny and dictatorship.

Welcome to Ron Paul’s America.


There’s no gauzy, uplifting imagery in the Texas congressman’s stump speech, no city on a hill. It’s a grim, thousand-points-of-darkness jeremiad that makes the rest of the GOP field’s somber depiction of Obama-era America seem sunny.

But in a moment when voters’ own optimism has faded, Paul’s message is clearly resonating. After finishing a close third in Iowa, the most recent New Hampshire poll has him in second place behind Mitt Romney, and he’s got crowds showing up at event after event to hear his gloomy scenario of a nation “where our personal liberties are under attack” and an economy that could “go over a cliff and suddenly sink rather rapidly.”

“In an economic crisis, which I anticipate will come, if we don’t clean up our act the economy is going to get much worse, the conclusion of the destruction of currency can have a lot of violent repercussions [and] a lot of demonstrations in the street, if not violence,” Paul said Friday night at a town hall in the student union at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. “So they have all these laws against this. Who knows? If you happen to belong to a group that happens to be considered anti-war, … you can’t tell what they might do.”

Paul’s an opponent of federal spending, but rather than focusing his attention on the standard conservative targets his GOP rivals attack at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, Paul also complains about the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense. The rest of the field worries about an America threatened by the creeping hand of socialism. Paul warns about a tightening fist of fascism.

“Most of the world is run by tyrants and dictators,” he told a crowd in Atlantic, Iowa, recently, “and we’re drifting that way.”

In Durham, he cautioned: “We shouldn’t be so intimidated and frightened that we allow our presidents to assume this power to assassinate an American citizen with no charges.”

The dark tone adopted by Paul represents a dramatic departure from the traditional presidential campaign speech — it’s dusk in his America, not morning. His rhetoric is also distinctly different from what his rivals are saying, even as they criticize President Barack Obama’s stewardship. Where they see waste, fraud and ineptitude in federal government and Congress, Paul sees lying, scheming and conspiracy.

“When you count the way they did during the Depression … unemployment is probably closer to 20 percent. That’s why there’s a disconnect. People feel worse than the government tells you you’re supposed to feel,” Paul said. “The unemployment rate is much bigger, the inflation rate is much worse.”

Town halls held in New Hampshire on Sunday by Paul and Jon Huntsman measured the chasm between Paul and his competitors. Here in Meredith, Paul accused the federal government of “propping up the statistics” to hide the true state of the economy, noting that “Europe is collapsing right now” and warned of a pending American debt crisis.

Huntsman, meanwhile, painted a more hopeful vision. Speaking in Keene, the former Utah governor said the nation is more divided and saddled with debt than generations before, but also asserted that “we are on the cusp of a manufacturing renaissance in this country” before musing about “the magic of America.”

Paul’s supporters say they appreciate the Texas congressman’s bleak stump speech, noting that he’s been proven right on the issues before and insisting that they welcome the refreshing candor of his Cassandra-like message.

“That’s the harsh reality of it. It is a grim situation,” said Chris Fleming of Manchester, who attended a Nashua event last week. “The whole media blackout plays a role; they don’t like having that message put out. Why would we want to walk around like horses with blinders on?”

Ed Aichinger, a Bedford resident who attended the Meredith town hall with his wife and daughter, hosted Paul at their home in 2011. He wasn’t a big Paul supporter four years ago but, like many other Paul backers interviewed for this story, now welcomes the warnings.

“Everybody’s just in a daze and clueless about what’s going on,” Aichinger said. “The lights are going to go out pretty soon. I want to keep ’em on a little longer. … I’m an adult. I don’t need sugarcoating.”

Paul’s campaign chief Jesse Benton said the congressman is simply being honest about the serious problems confronting the nation — which puts him at odds with his foes, who aren’t upfront.

“He’s telling the truth,” Benton said. “That’s just who he is. He’s running out of deep concern. He has very little personal desire to be president. … He feels so strongly about trying to help and solve these problems that he’s running for president.”

Benton also makes the point that Paul offers more than just doom and gloom.

“Ron is always, always very careful to end on a positive note — and that is that he believes in liberty. He believes liberty is the best system and he sees our country waking up — particularly young people — waking up to these issues. And that’s inherently a positive thing. But we face a lot more challenges than the establishment candidates want to admit.”

In any case, for all his sky-is-falling rhetoric, at one recent event Paul pointed out that there is a reason for hope: his campaign.

“There’s no reason to be despondent about how this country is going right now if we do the right thing,” he said.