Against the odds, Ron Paul’s supporters in Northeast Ohio are still pulling out all the stops for the March 4th primary. Here at a Chesterland coffee shop on a recent evening, about 20 of Ron Paul’s most fervent fans are plotting their pre-primary campaigning.
Young and old, they’re armed with lawn signs, pamphlets, even DVDs, hoping to convince just a few more Northeast Ohio voters to fill in the bubble for Ron Paul. Kathy Jagodnik heads Paul’s Lake County supporters
JAGODNIK: We’ve all come to this cause by our own path, but we’re all really devoted to promoting freedom.
By freedom, supporters mostly mean freedom from government control. Paul is a staunch libertarian, and that appealed to Peter Reck, who is Jagodnik’s counterpart in Geauga County. Reck grew up in DC, but says he never really cared about politics until now.
RECK: My wife always used to say to me: you have to start your own party ‘cause I had my own ideas. And one day I heard Ron Paul speak, and my mouth dropped open. I was like, I think I just agreed with everything that guy just said!
Supporters like Reck are drawn to Paul’s unconventional positions. He has proposed an alternative currency to compete with the dollar, is a strong advocate of home-schooling and gun rights, and is staunchly anti-war. Reck says it’s hard to campaign for someone who defies easy characterization.
RECK: When you knock on a door, and someone says is he a democrat or republican, you kind of want to shake because it’s not an issue of being a good democrat or being a good republican; it’s not about parties. It’s about changing the country.
That’s why when you talk to Paul fans, you hear just as much distaste for both sides. So, whether it’s Reck talking about Obama….
RECK: Obama stands up there and says “we need change”, and everybody starts cheering!
Or Jagodnik criticizing John McCain…
JAGODNIK: Somebody said, is the war going to last 10 years, he said let’s make it 100! Just the callousness of how he tossed that off, it’s offensive.
One person who also doesn’t fit neatly into either party is Anne Stevenson. While the Ron Paul group was meeting, she was sitting in a corner of the coffee shop reading a book, when she realized who they were.
STEVENSON: What a coincidence….
It just so happened the Paul fans’ campaigning had worked on her.
STEVENSON: It was door to door, and most of the time I’m irritated by that kind of thing. But I hadn’t heard anything about Ron Paul. What I had heard intrigued me, but I didn’t know where to get information.
After watching a DVD, she became a believer.
STEVENSON: After I saw it, I had my older children look at it, they’re both voting age, took it over to the neighbors.
But the campaigners know there are few converts like Stevenson in Ohio. They’re not expecting Paul to do more than the single digits in the March 4th primary. Even Ron Paul has continued to campaign for his Texas congressional seat, not expecting to go far in his presidential bid. But Reck says, that’s not the point.
RECK: It’s not about this election. It’s not about Ron Paul. I mean, Ron Paul is just the reluctant delivery boy for this message. He didn’t even want to run. They convinced him to run.
And, that’s why the Ron Paul group will continue to meet no matter how well he does on March 4th.