Ron Paul

SCHAUMBURG, ILL. - Front-runner Mitt Romney won the Illinois primary with ease last night, trumping Rick Santorum in yet another industrial-state showdown and padding his already-formidable delegate lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney triumphed after benefitting from a crushing advantage in the TV-ad wars, and as his chief rival struggled to overcome self-imposed political wounds in the marathon race to pick an opponent to face President Obama in November.

VINTON, Iowa - Texas Rep. Ron Paul is emerging as a significant factor in the Republican presidential race, especially in Iowa. The GOP establishment has long dismissed the libertarian-leaning candidate, but he is turning heads beyond his hard-core followers - and rising in some polls - just weeks before the state holds the leadoff presidential caucuses Jan. 3 and four years since his failed 2008 bid. Paul's sharp criticism of government spending...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Ron Paul has given up on becoming president, but loyal supporters are promising to promote the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman's principles at the Republican National Convention this summer, a potential complication for Mitt Romney's goal of a peaceful coronation. Paul backers have taken over state Republican conventions in Nevada and Maine, and had a strong showing during the weekend in Iowa, aiming to increase their voice and clout at the nominating convention in Tampa, Fla. "We want to send Ron Paul-inspired folks to that convention to show we're not going away," says Iowa Republican David Fischer, a top Paul backer in the state.

Ron Paul gains in late Maine vote EAST MACHIAS, Maine - Ron Paul has gained 83 votes on Mitt Romney following a Republican presidential caucus in eastern Maine, where voting last week had been postponed due to a snowstorm. Romney still holds a 156-vote lead over Paul in statewide totals. Paul received 163 votes in the Feb. 11 Washington County caucus, where Republicans from more than two dozen towns gathered to cast their votes. Romney received 80 votes. Rick Santorum got 57 votes, and Newt Gingrich received four votes.

When the Republican presidential candidates took the stage at the NBC News/Facebook debate on Meet the Press on Jan. 8, it was their last big chance to make an impression before the New Hampshire primary. They may have differed from one another on political issues throughout the event, but there was something unmistakably uniform about the six candidates. Lined up side by side under the bright lights, each wore a plain dark navy suit, solid light-colored shirt, subtle tie, and, except for Ron Paul, a lapel pin of some kind (in most cases, an American flag)

Ron Paul, born in Pittsburgh in 1935, once a flight surgeon in the Air Force and a former member of Congress from Texas, has given up on the Republican Party and its most recent contribution to the presidency - Ronald Reagan - and decided to run for the White House himself. But voters looking for Paul will not find him elbow-to-elbow with the presidential aspirants of the two major political parties. He does need money, and sure, he would take a few photo opportunities. But Paul does not want delegates.

Kelly Clarkson on Thursday was hit with a tsunami of abusive tweets after she endorsed U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas for the Republican presidential nomination. "I love Ron Paul," she wrote on WhoSay. "I liked him a lot during the last republican nomination and no one gave him a chance. If he wins the nomination . . . he's got my vote. Too bad he probably won't. " Some Clarkson fans tweeted that Paul has been accused of holding racist and homophobic views. (He has denied the allegations.)

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and a contributing editor of the American Spectator Can Ron Paul make Abe Lincoln a villain - in the Party of Lincoln? Why would he try in the first place? And who would help him? In all the attention that has surrounded the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul, one of the problems that has been bubbling just below the surface is the congressman's special contempt for the man most Americans revere as the nation's greatest president.

'End the Fed" is a book by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas). Last year, Paul introduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act in Congress. Last week, Republicans named him head of the House committee that monitors the Fed. Is Paul, a free-market, hard-money advocate, really going to kill the central bank? He backpedaled a bit, telling Bloomberg TV he would "not really, not right up front" kill the central bank. "But obviously that's the implication," he concluded. Last time the United States ended its central bank, Andrew Jackson was president, and the central bank was in Philadelphia, which fell right into a long financial depression, along with the rest of the country.

Some deserve a second chance Times are tough, but for those with nonviolent misdemeanors in their past, the tough times just won't release their grip. Pennsylvania legislators should seize the opportunity to provide such constituents with the chance they need to move toward self sufficiency by passing Senate Bill 1220 ("Pa. bill would let more get clean slate," Tuesday). This bipartisan initiative contains well-conceived checks and balances that will help ensure it applies to deserving ex-offenders.