Happy Birthday Daily Paul! The Interview that Started it All

by Michael Nystrom | January 22, 2008

Friends,
It was one year ago last week (January 19, 2007 to be exact) that I started the Daily Paul. I had known about Dr. Paul since 2002, when I saw him live on CNBC one morning giving old Alan Greenspan a grilling about our fiat money system. But in early January last year, it was this article in the Washington Post that lit my heart with joy: Texas Congressman Seeks Presidency. It was true! Ron Paul really was running for President!!! I had heard the rumors floating around on the web, but that article on January 11th confirmed it.

It was about a week later that I heard on of the first podcast/interviews of Dr. Paul discussing his campaign on the Korelin Economics Report. (Direct link to the interview here). I downloaded the interview to my mp3 player and went walking around the neighborhood listening to it. It was a brilliantly sunny, freezing cold day in Boston. This interview is one year old now, but still well worth your listen – in fact, I highly recommend it. It is still so inspiring to me, because so much of what Dr. Paul said has come true. It is like going back in time and being able to instantly see how far we’ve come! And my how far we have come!!!

Here are some paraphrased excerpts of what I heard that made me decide – the very next day after listening – to start this website.

Dr. Paul: I see what I do as similar to what the Founders did in that they were very well educated and they worked very hard and they believed, but eventually education has to be translated into political action…Ultimately, you have to be a political activist if you believe that change should come because otherwise you just leave it to other people to pick up the pieces. I’m optimistic about what is happening in the country. The numbers of people who support our views are so much greater than they were thirty years ago. And with this internet…who knows? I have no idea what the support is. All I’ve known is that so far in the last week it is much broader and stronger than I ever dreamed of, when I think of the thousands and thousands of inquiries we’ve already received.

I think there is [the possibility that the campaign could go a long way]. I think the numbers of people out there who are sick and tired of what they’re getting are strong enough that we can have a real impact and be very competitive. But then when you talk about dollar-wise, that’s a different story. Because those individuals and groups and companies that have a special interest – you know, the military industrial complex – and other organizations – the Haliburtons of the world … this is high stakes politics for them. So that is the real challenge. Can the technology of the internet compensate for the power that the people have when they have hundreds of millions of dollars up against you…

[Interviewer notes that Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president on the internet because he wanted to show how progressive he was]

Interviewer: 2008 is going to be an incredibly important election for the United States of America. The reason I say that is we’ve had politics as usual for a long time now, and in my view, politics as usual has really gotten us into trouble. One is the accurate state of the US economy, and second, I have some very, very deep concerns about what is going on in the Middle East right now and the role that we have there. Now, 2008 is shaping up to be, so far, politics as usual…. It’s all the same players doing the same things. But when I talked with your office last week, they stressed that this campaign would only succeed if it was truly only successful grassroots. I find that to be both refreshing and very, very exciting. Comments?

Dr. Paul: Of course that’s what we have to depend on, and so far we’ve been encouraged, not discouraged. And that would be revolutionary. Somebody on the internet wrote that this is not a contest between Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton, as much as it is a real challenge between the people who get their information off the internet in a quiet sort of way, versus the major networks. … We live in a new and modern age and no one has truly measured this. They got around the edges…I think Howard Dean got around the edges two years ago, and did pretty well until he ran into some problems, so…But the technology continues to improve, and the ability to reach millions of people at a very low cost is very intriguing.

Those few paragraphs, directly from Ron Paul into my ears on that brilliant, freezing cold day in Boston last year, are what persuaded me to start the Daily Paul. I knew he was right about the impact that the internet would have on this election and I wanted to be a part of it. I was pretty sure that I had something to contribute, but I never really thought we’d come this far. But now, having come this far, I realize that it is only the beginning.

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