"He (like his fellow Republicans) say they want government off the backs of the people but he is still fervently anti-choice. how do you reconcile that contradiction?"

At all turns, when it comes to Ron Paul, I refer people to his own statements (and not the ones made in his name which he has repudiated--there are quite a few out there).

You call it anti-choice, but that label masks RP's take on the issue. What he has said repeatedly is that the federal government has no business legislating that issue for all the states unless a change is made to the constitution. And yes, he'd be for the change that says "let's don't abort babies," but I think it's clear from his writings of the past 30 years that he has been totally consistant with that, and further it's clear that he understands that this is not something the President gets to decide on his own.

At the bottom of this issue is the fact that Ron Paul doesn't believe that as president he would get to direct the country without a clear resort to the legislative process. Can the same be said of any of the three "real candidates"?

I really think his anti-abortion stance stems from his work delivering babies. I mean, how many traffic cops do you know, who have worked a lot of accidents, that still drive with wanton abandon? Doesn't the job do something to a person's sense of what a choice really is?

Traffic cops see the world in terms of speeders and violators, accidents and consequences, just as the person with a hammer in his hand sees the world in terms of nails that need pounded. So Ron Paul, deliverer of thousands of babies, does not find the concept of abortion to be pleasant enough for him to stand for. I can see that.

What other parts of RP's message ring dimly for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWMDF92ZE7c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht8CQuOjxjs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9tzUwfqvJY

Herring405