Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, perennial winner of the CPAC Straw Poll,thanks to a stuffed ballot box, is scheduled to announce  his third Presidential Campaign today.

According to those around him, the 12-term Congressman will announce the formation of an exploratory presidential committee and a campaign leadership team.

His press conference takes in Iowa, a significant move due to the fact that it will be the first state to hold caucuses next year.

The 75-year-old Paul Paul, was the Libertarian Party candidate in 198, where he garnered less than one half a percent of the vote. He ran again in 2008, when he became known as the only Republican candidate calling for the end to the war in Iraq and for his “money bomb” fundraising strategy, which brought in millions of dollars from online donors in single-day pushes.

The Liberatarian received 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses and 8 percent in New Hampshire’s primary. He received 14 percent of the vote in the Nevada caucuses, finishing second, and eventually finished fourth in the Republican nominating process with 5.6 percent of the total vote.

Paul’s campaign book, The Revolution: A Manifesto reached No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list in 2008.

Dr. Paul has some good ideas, and is actually pretty sharp about the money issues, such as the Fed.  But, on other issues, he appears removed for the thoughts and wishes of average Americans.

Here is an  excerpt from a speech given at a fundraiser in May 2007 in Austin, TX:

Today, the conventional wisdom is that we have to have a President to “run things” [crowd boos]. What I’d like to be is a president that doesn’t even have a goal of running your life, running the economy, or running the world. [load applause] I want to use all my strength and my conviction and my effort to restrain anybody who uses force illegally, that people not be allowed to try to run other people’s lives. And that will take a lot of doing, because a lot of people have become dependent on the government.

Another issue that I deal with; and now this is the real-world politics, because we might in a group like this agree, you know, “We don’t need the welfare, we don’t need this, leave us alone, and it would all be better,” and quite frankly I think it would be but we live in the real world, where we have taught generations after generations to be totally dependent on the government. So realistically, you can’t just shut off every government health program and whatever for the elderly.

But, there’s a very practical answer for this. Overseas, now, to run the American Empire, if you add up the DOD budget, if you add up the State Department budget, if you add up what it would cost to bring the military, to take care of the veterans, and on and on, do you know that it is nearing trillion dollars a year to operate overseas, while ignoring our borders? [crowd boos]

So why not we do this? If it’s at one trillion dollars, lets say that we could have a true national defense for, say, 700 billion dollars, I mean, save 700, spend 300 on defense, save 700, put a lot of that to the deficit, bring it home, deal with our borders, and make sure that the people that are very dependent, take care of them until we can wean them off. [applause]

I believe that almost every single problem that we’re facing today has come about because we haven’t been a stickler for the rule of law. We haven’t followed the Constitution, and that’s where we ought to begin. And the fact that the problems have been created by the lack of respect for the Constitution, the answers can be found there. They can be found there on foreign policy, on economic policy, property rights, personal liberties, all these things, monetary policy. Can you imagine how great a nation we’d have, if we didn’t have the Federal Reserve system printing all this money? [applause]

And, it goes without saying that when we have the proper sized government, and governments function in the proper manner, we certainly wouldn’t need the IRS or the 16th Amendment. [applause] Government has a role to play, but it should be minimal. The sole purpose of political activity, as far as I’m concerned, should be protection of individual liberty. [applause]

I think what’s happened in this country is we’ve lost respect for the rule of law, that we’ve lost respect and confidence in how liberty works. We’re always frightened that if the government doesn’t provide this safety net, there’s gonna be more poverty, no housing, and all the things that happened over the last several decades. But this is not necessary. It is so unnecessary. Freedom works! We’ve lost that confidence where we know and understand that it will work. But there is one admonition that John Adams gave, and he said, “For freedom really to work, you have to have a moral society.”

Except for the Paul’s isolationism streck voiced in that clip, there was some pretty good stuff in there, right?

Well,then there’s this speech, given on the floor of the house on January 9, 2009:

Statement on H Res 34, “Recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, Reaffirming the United States strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process”

Madame Speaker, I strongly oppose H. Res. 34, which was rushed to the floor with almost no prior notice and without consideration by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The resolution clearly takes one side in a conflict that has nothing to do with the United States or US interests. I am concerned that the weapons currently being used by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza are made in America and paid for by American taxpayers. What will adopting this resolution do to the perception of the United States in the Muslim and Arab world? What kind of blowback might we see from this? What moral responsibility do we have for the violence in Israel and Gaza after having provided so much military support to one side?

As an opponent of all violence, I am appalled by the practice of lobbing homemade rockets into Israel from Gaza. I am only grateful that, because of the primitive nature of these weapons, there have been so few casualties among innocent Israelis. But I am also appalled by the longstanding Israeli blockade of Gaza — a cruel act of war — and the tremendous loss of life that has resulted from the latest Israeli attack that started last month.

There are now an estimated 700 dead Palestinians, most of whom are civilians. Many innocent children are among the dead. While the shooting of rockets into Israel is inexcusable, the violent actions of some people in Gaza does not justify killing Palestinians on this scale. Such collective punishment is immoral. At the very least, the US Congress should not be loudly proclaiming its support for the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.

Madame Speaker, this resolution will do nothing to reduce the fighting and bloodshed in the Middle East. The resolution in fact will lead the US to become further involved in this conflict, promising “vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” Is it really in the interest of the United States to guarantee the survival of any foreign country?

Only if you believe Genesis 12: 1-3, Dr. Paul, who, as someone who attends church, I know you’ve heard.