Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) — a pro-gun-rights, anti-abortion, anti-war libertarian presidential candidate — has attracted an almost cultish devotion among his young supporters. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Libertarian Paul wins young minds

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) — a pro-gun-rights, anti-abortion, anti-war libertarian presidential candidate — has attracted an almost cultish devotion among his young supporters.

These are folks who don’t just show up for Paul. They show up against everyone else.


Whether in Gainesville, Fla. — where four hardy Paul backers stood outside Fred Thompson’s campaign bus on a football Saturday, hoisting signs and receiving taunts from inebriated tailgaters — or in Iowa City, where a group of Paul devotees had a shouting contest with Rudy Giuliani backers following a rally at the student union, the congressman’s believers are nothing if not committed.

Even derisive jeers of “RuPaul” from the other Republicans’ young supporters don’t lessen their ardor.

Paul, a candidate who proposes eliminating the Federal Reserve and personal income tax — issues widely viewed as settled since their creation in 1913 — would hardly seem the obvious choice for these young voters.

But his cadre of Web-savvy young supporters is intensely dedicated, even if small in numbers — despite the fact that Paul languishes near the bottom of national and early-primary-state polls. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads among young Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to those same polls, for example, but Paul matches him in online social networking, college chapters and student fundraising.

Paul’s biggest Facebook group boasts more than 34,000 members, compared with about 16,000 in Romney’s largest group. (Politico asked the four leading Republican presidential campaigns about their youth programs, but only Romney’s responded in time for this article.) Paul claims to have 250 campus groups, compared with Romney’s 200 or so. And Paul is the only candidate making much use of the online tool Meetup. (In fact, his enthusiastic online supporters have become so ubiquitous that the popular conservative blog Redstate banned new users from “shilling” for him.)

So why has he attracted such passionate young backers?

“It’s his principled politics,” said Dallas Moorhead, 24, who quit his job in Indiana and moved cross-country to volunteer full-time at Paul campaign’s headquarters above a dry cleaner in suburban Virginia.

Moorhead epitomizes the typical young Paul acolyte: He is disenchanted with the phoniness of conventional politicians and, as a states-rights Goldwater conservative, decries the “neo-con” turn of the Bush administration. “A lot of students, because of the latest administration, are fed up with talking points,” he said, ticking off the war in Iraq and spending as his primary policy disappointments.

But Paul’s campaign has not simply taken an “if you build it, they will come” attitude toward young supporters. His is the only Republican presidential campaign with a full-time national youth outreach director, Jeff Frazee, 24. And Moorhead soon will join the staff to assist Frazee in online organizing.

The work has paid off. Frazee said that of Paul’s $8 million in total donations, $100,000 has come from students alone. That’s a much higher proportion than the $180,000 that Romney raised from students — of about $45 million total from outside donors.

Moorhead, like many young Paul supporters, does not define himself as a libertarian. Rather, he describes himself as “very conservative” and, among other things, shares Paul’s opposition to abortion, preferring (like Paul) that it be adjudicated at the state rather than the federal level.

Similarly, Lauren Drew, a 21-year-old senior at George Washington University who runs Paul’s Northern Virginia Meetup group, calls herself “an old-style conservative.” Like many Paul supporters, Drew says that she will not vote for a major-party candidate if Paul loses the primary. She hopes he would run as a third-party candidate — otherwise, she said, she will write him in, if she even votes at all.

Paul told Politico recently that he has “no intention of running as a third-party candidate” if he doesn’t win the GOP nomination. (He was the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988.) Before an appearance at American University in Washington, Paul said he would endorse the candidate who “promises to get us out of Iraq and support liberty at home.” (At the moment, no other Republican candidate has signed up for a withdrawal from Iraq.)

Though Paul defines himself as a libertarian and attributes the dedication of his young supporters to libertarian positions — such as allowing people to opt out of Social Security and Medicare — many libertarian pundits say Paul isn’t in sync with younger, more “modern” libertarians.

“He’s sort of an old-style, old-right libertarian candidate,” explained Brink Lindsey, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute. Paul departs from younger libertarians with his opposition to abortion rights and free trade agreements, for example, Lindsey said.

But if it’s not the policies, what is it about Paul that so attracts the young? His perceived integrity, said Nick Gillespie, the editor of the libertarian magazine Reason. “He has a set of principles applied consistently. He’s not a bullshit artist,” said Gillespie, who contrasted Paul’s plainspoken approach with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s waffling on abortion. “I think that’s very attractive to younger voters who are too stupid to realize that’s not how politics works.”

And being the only Republican presidential candidate to oppose the Iraq war is guaranteed to win him young fans. “Wars always affect young people more than old people,” Gillespie noted.

Some of Paul’s young right-wing supporters dismiss the idea of voting for Democratic candidates who opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2002 — namely Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. But Stephen Rose, a freshman at Metropolitan State College of Denver who belongs to Paul’s Facebook group, said he might support Obama in the general election if Paul loses the Republican nomination. Rose considers himself a libertarian and said he supports Paul because of his positions on the war and personal freedom.

However they label themselves, Paul’s young supporters who heard him speak at American University in Washington last week were obviously excited to see him. Applause lines included Iraq, Paul’s proposal to eliminate the selective service system and thus prevent a draft, and Paul’s pledge to end federal restrictions on medical marijuana.

Will Haun, president of the College Republicans chapter at American University, observed that Paul’s supporters there seem more enthusiastic than those of other GOP candidates. “You don’t have to be as enthusiastic about a front-runner. But Paul is distinctive,” Haun said.

Picking up on a recent theme of the Republican primary debates, Haun said “one of the critiques you could make of the front-runners is that they spend all their time criticizing Hillary Clinton,” the Democratic senator from New York and her party’s front-runner for the nomination.

“I need a reason to vote for you, not a reason to vote against her,” Haun said. “Congressman Paul’s message gives his supporters a reason to vote for him.”