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Dr. Ronald Ernest was born on August 20, 1935 in Pittsburgh. He is an M.D. who graduated from Duke University's medical college in 1961. He completed his medical internship at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh. Paul served as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1963 to 1965 and then in the United States Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. Paul and his wife then relocated to Texas, where he began a private practice in obstetrics and gynecology.
Dr. Paul was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served three stints as the Representative for Texas' 14th and 22nd congressional districts. He represented the 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1985, and then represented the 14th congressional district, which included Galveston, from 1997 to 2013.
On three occasions, he ran for Presidency of the United States: as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988 and as a candidate in the Republican primaries of 2008 and 2012.
Paul is a critic of the federal government's fiscal policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and the tax policy. Other issues that are of importance to him are the power of the military–industrial complex, and the War on Drugs. He has been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance programs. Dr. Paul has written many books on Austrian economics and classical liberal philosophy, beginning with The Case for Gold (1982) and including A Foreign Policy of Freedom (2007), Pillars of Prosperity (2008), The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008), End the Fed (2009) and Liberty Defined (2011).
After serving four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul ran for the 1984 Republican Party Senatorial nomination in Texas, but was defeated in the primary and returned to his practice of obstetrics and gynecology. In January 1987, he officially left the Republican Party to run for the Libertarian Party nomination, stating that he had become disillusioned with the spending policies of the Reagan administration. At the time, Paul said: "Ronald Reagan has given us a deficit ten times greater than what we had with the Democrats. It didn't take more than a month after 1981, to realize there would be no changes."
The Libertarian Party had courted Paul for the previous six years. On February 16, 1987, Paul announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination at a party luncheon in San Francisco, California. During his announcement speech, Paul said that "Big government is running away with our freedom and our money, and the Republicans are just as much to blame as the Democrats." Paul campaigned for the nomination for the most part of 1987, traveling to numerous state conventions. His running mate was Andre Marrou, a former Libertarian member of the Alaska House of Representatives. Paul was nominated on the first ballot with 196 of the 368 votes cast. During the election campaign he traveled to Universities, held press conferences and filmed an eight-minute television advertisement. His goal was to gain enough support to win a place in the League of Women Voters-sponsored presidential debates.
Speaking in Helena, Montana, Paul called for the Reagan administration to balance the budget and cut spending and taxes. He argued that Reagan had reneged on his 1980 campaign promise to balance the budget. His platform included a call for the decriminalization of hard drugs. He was endorsed by comedian and talk-show host David Letterman, as well as psychologist and counterculture icon Timothy Leary, who held a fundraiser for Paul.
Paul's tax policy called for a flat income tax rate of 10% on all earnings over $10,000 annually. Paul promised that as president he would veto spending increases for both domestic programs and the military. He asked, "what's extreme about a balanced budget?" Paul conceded that he would not win the election but explained that votes for his ticket would give a bigger voice to Libertarian issues in American politics.
By October 1988, the campaign had secured ballot access in 46 states and the District of Columbia. Paul received editorial support from a number of newspapers across the nation, though not endorsements. Paul finished in third place on Election Day. He received 431,750 votes, which made up 0.47% of the overall vote. The largest percentage won by Paul came in Alaska, where he received 2.74%.
Paul was re-elected to Congress in 1996, where he served until 2012. In 2008 he made another run for President, this time seeking the Republican Party's nomination. He officially entered the race on March 12, 2007. Initial opinion polls during the first three quarters of 2007 showed Paul consistently receiving support from 3% or less of those polled. In 2008, Paul's support among Republican voters remained in the single digits, and well behind front-runner John McCain.
During the fourth quarter of 2007, Paul was the most successful Republican fundraiser, bringing in approximately $20 million. He also received the most money from the armed services of any candidate in the fourth quarter. His campaign set two fund-raising records: the largest single-day donation total among Republican candidates and twice receiving the most money received via the Internet in a single day by any presidential candidate. This campaign received considerable support from grassroots social networking on the Internet. Paul's supporters dubbed "Paulites" by the media. Paul received most of his contributions from individuals, at 97%, the highest percentage of any candidate.
By February 5, 2008, Paul had won sixteen delegates to the Republican National Convention, placing him last among the four Republican candidates still in the race at that time. The campaign projected on February 6 to have secured at least 42 delegates to the national convention. On March 4, 2008, John McCain earned enough pledged delegates to become the Republican presumptive nominee, but Paul decided to continue his run. Paul released The Revolution: A Manifesto on April 29, which collected essays based on thoughts that arose from his experiences running for president in 2008. The book went on to be a number 1 bestseller among political books on Amazon.com and the New York Times nonfiction list.
On June 12, 2008, Paul announced that he was ending the presidential campaign. He did not endorse McCain in the general election. At a September 10, 2008, press conference, Paul announced his general support of four third-party candidates: Cynthia McKinney (Green Party); Bob Barr (Libertarian Party); Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party); and Ralph Nader (independent). He said that each of them had agreed to a policy of balancing budgets, bringing the troops home, defending privacy and personal liberties, and investigating the Federal Reserve. Paul also said that under no circumstances would he be endorsing either of the two main parties' candidates because there were no real differences between them, and because neither of them, if elected, would seek to make the fundamental changes in governance that were necessary. He said that, rather than contribute to the “charade” that the two-party election system had become, he wanted voters to support third-party candidates as a protest vote. Two weeks later, Paul released a statement saying that he had decided to endorse Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate, for president.
Paul's name appeared on the ballot in the general election in two states (Montana and Louisiana) and he received write-in votes in other states. He received 42,426 votes, or 0.03% of the total cast, in the general election.
Paul decided to seek the GOP nomination once again in 2012. He participated in the first Republican presidential debate on May 5, 2011 and on May 13, 2011, Paul formally announced his candidacy in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America. He placed second in the 2011 Ames Straw Poll, missing first by 0.9%.
In December 2011, with Paul's increased support, a controversy arose over alleged racist and homophobic statements that appeared in several of Ron Paul newsletters in the 1980s and early 1990s. Paul denied personal authorship of these statements, but said that he accepted responsibility for the fact that they had gone out under his name without being edited carefully enough.
Paul finished third in the Iowa Republican Caucus held on January 3, 2012, receiving 26,036 (21%) of the certified votes. In the New Hampshire Primary held on January 10, 2012, Paul received 23% of the votes and came in second after Mitt Romney's 39%. But his support declined after that, despite the withdrawal of candidates Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry. He had fourth-place finishes in the next two primaries, on January 21 in South Carolina (with 13% of the vote) and on January 31 in Florida (where he received 7% of the vote). On February 4, Paul finished third in Nevada with 18.8% of the vote. Three non-binding primaries were held on February 7; Paul took 3rd place in Colorado and Missouri with 13% and 12% of the vote respectively. He fared better in Minnesota with 27%, finishing second.
On May 14, Paul's campaign announced that the candidate was suspending campaigning due to lack of funds. He declined to speak at the Republican National Convention, saying that the convention planners had demanded that his remarks be vetted by the Romney campaign and that they wanted him to make an unqualified endorsement of Romney. He said "It wouldn’t be my speech. That would undo everything I’ve done in the last 30 years. I don’t fully endorse him for president." Many of Paul's supporters and delegates walked out of the convention in protest over rules adopted by the convention.
As in 2008, in 2012 Paul ultimately refused to endorse the ticket selected by the Republican Party. He said that there was no essential difference between Romney and President Barack Obama on the most critical policies. Paul received 26,204 write-in votes, or 0.02% of the total cast in the election.
On July 12, 2011, Paul announced that he would forgo seeking another term in Congress in order to focus on his presidential bid.In January 2013, Paul retired from Congress but he still remains active, giving speeches promoting his libertarian vision. Paul received one electoral vote from a Texas faithless elector in the 2016 presidential election, making him the oldest person to receive an electoral vote, as well as the second registered Libertarian Presidential candidate in history to receive an Electoral College vote.