Republican Congressman Ron Paul Makes His Presidential Bid Official 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 13, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Texas Republican Ron Paul made his bid for the GOP nomination for president official on Monday. Although Paul is pro-life, he is a former Libertarian Party presidential candidate and his views on government have put him at odds with the pro-life community, which has sough to use federal laws to protect unborn children.
Paul represents a southeastern Texas congressional district and he used an interview on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program to announce that he is taking his exploratory presidential campaign to the next step.
His campaign chairman Kent Snyder described Paul as “a real conservative in the race for president” who GOP primary voters can support over candidates who support bigger government.
He previously acknowledged that it would be a long shot for Paul to win the nomination.
"There’s no question that it’s an uphill battle, and that Dr. Paul is an underdog," Snyder said. "But we think it’s well worth doing and we’ll let the voters decide."
"But there was also a time when Jimmy Carter was not well known at all, when Bill Clinton was not well known at all," Snyder added.
Paul is a nine-term Texas congressman and a medical doctor who is pro-life but his view of the role of the federal government has lowered his pro-life voting record during his tenure on Capitol Hill.
From 2005-2006, Paul had just a 56 percent pro-life voting record as he voted four times against a federal law protecting teenagers from being taken to other states for secret abortions in violation of the parental notification or consent laws of their home state. He doesn’t think federal law should cover abortion issues.
Because he believes in limited government, he strongly opposes using taxpayer funds to pay for embryonic stem cell research but has also voted against public funding of adult stem cell research as well.
In previous years, Paul’s had a 73 percent, 81 percent and 79 percent pro-life voting record going back to 1999, according to the National Right to Life Committee.
Paul was first elected to Congress in 1976 and then lost a Senate primary in 1984. He later ran for Congress in an adjacent seat in 1996 and won. He most recently won his re-election bid by a 60 to 40 percent margin.
National presidential polls and those in leading states of Iowa and New Hampshire have not shown Paul with any level of support.
