MSNBC "Tucker" -Transcript

Interview

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MR. CARLSON: We begin with the increasingly remarkable rise of Congressman Ron Paul and his formerly quixotic quest for legitimacy in the '08 presidential race.

Joining us now to talk about his campaign and its remarkable $4 million fund-raising day and its potential moving forward is Republican Congressman from Texas Dr. Ron Paul.

Dr. Paul, thanks for coming on.

REP. PAUL: Thank you. Nice to be with you.

MR. CARLSON: So who are these people who are giving you $4 million in one day?

REP. PAUL: I don't know. I haven't met them all.

MR. CARLSON: (Laughs.) Okay.

REP. PAUL: There's a lot of them out there.

MR. CARLSON: Who do you guess they are?

REP. PAUL: I believe they're very diverse. They're coming from all positions and all parts of the political spectrum. It's a very diverse crowd every time we meet with them. So I think we just bring a lot of people together that would like to be left alone and get the government out of their lives.

MR. CARLSON: So that is the unifying theme of your campaign, then, small government?

REP. PAUL: I think so. But we get attention, of course, on the foreign policy. But that, of course, is getting us -- getting government out of their lives, too, because they have to pay for it. And they see the war is not going well. So the war is a big issue. The economy is a big issue.

But personal liberty is the big issue, because the government tells everybody how they're supposed to run their lives and they tell them how they're allowed to spend their money, and then they come up with these programs of policing the world. So it's a very popular position to take.

MR. CARLSON: So all of a sudden the Ron Paul campaign seems like the Ron Paul movement. Are you prepared to lead a movement?

REP. PAUL: Well, sometimes that sounds easier to do than some other responsibilities that we have. No, I think so. I think that a movement can't be one person. A movement reflects a lot of people's attitudes, and things have been going on for a long time. And I think there's been a generational change.

You know, I've been in this business a long time. And certainly in the '70s, when I came to Congress, this couldn't have happened. But today there's a lot more people very attuned to the problems that we have, and they see that it can't work to continue to do what we're doing. The dollar is on the ropes. At the same time we have a foreign policy that's failing. So I think it's very ripe for this message. And the seeds have been sown, and I think we're starting to see the benefits of that.

MR. CARLSON: Now, this fund-raising success took place on what in Great Britain is Guy Fawkes Day, which is the celebration of the foiling of a plot to blow up the House of Parliament in the 17th century.

REP. PAUL: Yeah.

MR. CARLSON: Why that day? What's its significance for you?

REP. PAUL: Well, it has no significance to me other than the fact that now I know that November 5th is an important day in fund- raising. But I wasn't too much aware of that particular point in history, nor the movie that they recite and refer to. And I have not met the individual who put this all together. All I know, it's been spontaneous and it wasn't driven by the campaign. We certainly didn't discourage it, but we had nothing to say about it because the individuals were organizing on the Internet. I think it shows the power of an idea.

MR. CARLSON: What do you mean? You never met the guy responsible for organizing more than $4 million in money for you?

REP. PAUL: If I did, I don't remember it. And somebody said, "Well, we ought to get his telephone number. Now that it's over, you ought to probably call him." I plan to do that. But if I've met him, it was pretty casual. But I don't think I have met him, to tell you the truth.

But this is part of the campaign. The fact that we have over 1,100 meet-up groups is rather significant, and they're coming from around the world. So the message, I think, is very important, and the people are responding to it. But to me it's just a message which is something that I've been talking about for years.

It's a message of what has made America great is our Constitution, the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance and self-responsibility. So it's not a strange message. It's just that a lot of Americans have forgotten about it. And now we've revived the interest. All of a sudden we have found out that it's a very exciting message.

MR. CARLSON: Well, but that message was routinely ignored by your own party, by the Republican Party. Time and again you were the only dissenting vote on various pieces of legislation. It's not a small-government party anymore; hasn't been for the last seven years, anyway.

If you don't get the nomination, what are you going to demand of your party? You've got all these people who love you, give you money. Do you want a speaking role at the convention, first off? And what do you want after that?

REP. PAUL: I haven't thought about that. I don't know if -- they're not likely to give you anything. Demanding it won't make a difference. I think that if you impress them with votes and money raised and supporters, they will respond. Most people here in Washington are really pretty political, and if they sense there's a shift in the wind out there, they're going to start shifting their positions. So I don't think I'm in the demanding position. What I'm doing now is just continuing the campaign and trying to do as well as I can in all the primaries.

MR. CARLSON: Are you -- I mean, this is almost like a Zen attitude you're effecting here. This is like a Deepak Chopra book. You're kind of standing back and letting it happen. Is that really the way you run your campaign?

REP. PAUL: Well, in a way, sort of laissez-faire. And it's doing pretty well. I wish we could take all the credit and say, you know, we had this fantastic genius that understood the Internet and put this all together. I mean, we thought about how could we use the Internet, but the Internet is using us and they have joined us. So it isn't any big secret, the fact that people do pay attention on the Internet and they spread out a lot of information. I think the big story is that the message was so well received by so many.

MR. CARLSON: I think that's a big story, too, and I'm glad to see people agree with your vision of small government. Ron Paul, thanks a lot for coming on. I appreciate that.

REP. PAUL: Thank you; appreciate it.

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