It's been a good fight, Ron.

Now that Super Tuesday is close to being wrapped up and John McCain has wrapped up the Republican Party nomination, I think this is a good opportunity to commemorate Dr. Ron Paul on a great campaign for the office of the President of the United States of America.

When I first started following this election, I really had no idea of which candidate to throw my initial support towards. Obama and Hillary obvoiusly garnered most of the attention as minority and woman candidates, representing the Party most diametrically opposed to the Bush Administration's arguably poor performance over the past eight years. I looked into their policies and voting records and personal beliefs, but none of them really stood out. I liked Obama's charisma and presence but was awry of his lack of executive experience. I respected Hillary as a former attorney, senator and former First Lady but I happen to find her calculating, unauthentic and phony to her supporters. Then of course you had your fringe candidates like Biden, Richardson, Kucinich and others who didn't have much of a platform to offer themselves. In short, the Democrats just didn't do it for me.

Being a natural conservative, I decided to look at what the Republicans had to offer. I wasn't too pleased with what I saw there. Romney was the quintessential big-business, slick-haired conniving politician who was there for the political exposure - but not for the people. Almost like a used car salesman who was running for President of the United States. Huckabee seemed like a nice guy but his ultra-conservative views on social issues like abortion and gay marriage threw me off. And of course Giuliani can't even make a politically-relevant statement without bringing up 9/11 or terrorism. Seems like luck had run its course.

But then I started reading up on the policies and beliefs of a Dr. Ron Paul. At first he seemed like just another alienated, fringe candidate looking form the outside-in but upon researching his views my then-limited opinions of him completely changed. I was completely enthralled by the core conservative values in his literature that I've always advocated myself. I was delighted and enlightened by his stances on small government, lower taxes, protection of civil liberties, non-interventionism and defensive military. Why should we tax our citizens unnecessarily? Why must we fight unsubstantiated wars and occupy territories that do not require our support? Why must we strip our people the basic liberties that they are entitled to simply on the merit of being an American citizen? It just made too much sense.

After months of learning about Dr. Paul's views on government and constitution and reading on the historical and modern conventions of Libertarianism I decided that this was the man who should be running the United States of America. This was a man who had a plan, was not afraid to speak up, and was tired of the partisan politics that were dividing the country apart. He wasn't in it for the power, ego or self-imposed 'duty' of running for President. He was an honest man of moral virtues and wisdom who truly thought he could change America for the better.

It was such a breath of fresh air in this current political climate. The Bushes, Clinton's, Kerry's, Gore's, Kennedy's, Romney's of the world are all too predictable as political candidates. We consistently hear them carry on with their cadre of vague, open-ended campaign promises, stupid thumbs-up gestures and sycophantic smiles. They're always telling us that the Bush Administration is wrong and that we need change. They're always telling us that this is War of Terror is necessary and that we must protect our citizens from evil-doers abroad. The list goes on and on.

But guess what? Are we still in the middle of a recession? Are we still facing the worst oil crisis since the Carter years? Are we facing a drastic underfunding of public education? And of course let's not forget how we're tossing billions on a military occupation while our health care system is arguably one of the worst in the entire world. Don't forget a rapidly shrinking middle class and a plethora of other problems that these politicians lead you believe are non-existent but are absolutely exposed to a person with a modicum of intelligence.

Now I'm not insinuating that Ron Paul has all the answers. For instance, I don't' support an immediate withdrawal of ALL troops form Iraq - we must leave a good number of forces there. I also think that a major cutting of taxes will equal drastic economic repercussions. Yet I can honestly say that at the very least he had a bold, concrete plan for rectifying many of the issues in our nation. Ask Obama or Hillary or McCain what their plans are cleaning up the mess Bush has left behind. Most likely you'll receive a couple of very vague promises and politically-correct answers to supplicate voters. Ask Paul and he's not afraid to speak his mind.

The truth is that we'll never know how he would have managed the position of President of the United States. I don't have a crystal ball so I can not honestly say whether he would have absolutely turned this country around. After all, we don't know how a true Libertarian politician implements policy when we have little-to-no frame of reference with which to compare it to. Fringe movements like Libertarianism and other independent parties get little mass support because they're specialized and often promote their own intrinsic views rather than appealing to the masses. In that sense we may never see a 'radical' like Paul take over an office of major importance.

However, I can honestly say that with Paul I would feel more confident about this country's future. When I would hear him lay out beliefs that other politicians were afraid to touch, it told me that this was a man who had vision and sage wisdom to speak practically and straight-forward. It was such a relief that there was a politician out there with rational thoughts instead of abstract ideology and false promises.

Now that John McCain has wrapped up the Republican nomination, I will throw my support behind the McCain campaign by default as a traditional conservative. But I am now conservative in a different sense - no longer in the neo-con right, but now as a Libertarian. It's ironic that Paul - the only true conservative of the bunch - was taken as the least credible by his own party. But that's politics for you - the politics that Paul was trying to put an end to. I will never forgive the mainstream media for avoiding all journalistic ethics to make a fool out of Paul. I lost complete respect for stations like Fox News which represented themselves as biased talk shows rather than objective sources of political commentary. I guess the media's true colors were exposed, if they had not been already. I guess for the bad that came out of this, there was also good.

With that, I'd like to thank Dr. Paul for giving me a new source of insight into political thought and ideology. For making me realize in greater acuteness the hypocrisy and idiocy of today's politicians and media. But most importantly, for giving me hope that there are indeed politicians out there whom have genuine concern and rational plans for the American people. It's been a good fight, Ron.