GoUpstate.com
Jul 21, 2007
JASON SPENCER, jason.spencer@shj.com
A little-known Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for president visited Spartanburg on Saturday and seemed to arrive with all the makings of rock-star candidate for his party — despite polling low, little name recognition and a relatively small campaign staff.
Supporters call it the “Ron Paul Revolution.” You might’ve seen it on signs or T-shirts. Or MySpace.Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Event Center — first, when he entered the room, a second one when a re-entered after doing a quick television interview and a third when he was formally introduced.Thunderous applause also followed when he decried the Patriot Act (ovation No. 4), when he said America should never go to war without a declaration from Congress or because of a United Nations resolution (ovation Nos. 8 and 9), and when he attacked President Bush’s foreign policy and handling of the war in Iraq (ovation Nos. 11, 12 and 13).“No nation building. No policing of the world. Peace is popular,” Paul said. “The sooner we get out of Iraq, the fewer Americans will die. And I say, it’s time to come home.”About 400 people — half from out of state — were shoehorned into Summit Pointe for a barbecue luncheon that doubled as a fundraiser for the Spartanburg County Republican Party. The local GOP, after expenses, made an estimated $5,000 on the event.Paul was invited to speak to the local party faithful (they numbered about 80 in the crowd) after county chairman Rick Beltram took offense at Paul’s explanation of the 9/11 attacks as “blowback” from America’s past intervention in the affairs of other countries during a GOP debate. That led to a widely distributed online tit-for-tat between Beltram and Paul supporters, and Beltram eventually invited Paul here to explain himself.Blowback, in and of itself, was not mentioned Saturday, though Paul often alluded to it, going as far back as World War I, “which (President) Woodrow Wilson got us into unnecessarily, and drew the lines in the Middle East that we’re suffering for today.”Beltram said he agreed with Paul on most issues except foreign policy, and that he believes the Texan converted some Upstaters to his revolution with Saturday’s speech.“I left feeling like a hero,” Beltram said. “I got more positive comments after that event than all the other presidential events combined.”Read more about Paul’s visit in the Herald-Journal on Sunday.
Jul 21, 2007
JASON SPENCER, jason.spencer@shj.com
A little-known Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for president visited Spartanburg on Saturday and seemed to arrive with all the makings of rock-star candidate for his party — despite polling low, little name recognition and a relatively small campaign staff.
Supporters call it the “Ron Paul Revolution.” You might’ve seen it on signs or T-shirts. Or MySpace.Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Event Center — first, when he entered the room, a second one when a re-entered after doing a quick television interview and a third when he was formally introduced.Thunderous applause also followed when he decried the Patriot Act (ovation No. 4), when he said America should never go to war without a declaration from Congress or because of a United Nations resolution (ovation Nos. 8 and 9), and when he attacked President Bush’s foreign policy and handling of the war in Iraq (ovation Nos. 11, 12 and 13).“No nation building. No policing of the world. Peace is popular,” Paul said. “The sooner we get out of Iraq, the fewer Americans will die. And I say, it’s time to come home.”About 400 people — half from out of state — were shoehorned into Summit Pointe for a barbecue luncheon that doubled as a fundraiser for the Spartanburg County Republican Party. The local GOP, after expenses, made an estimated $5,000 on the event.Paul was invited to speak to the local party faithful (they numbered about 80 in the crowd) after county chairman Rick Beltram took offense at Paul’s explanation of the 9/11 attacks as “blowback” from America’s past intervention in the affairs of other countries during a GOP debate. That led to a widely distributed online tit-for-tat between Beltram and Paul supporters, and Beltram eventually invited Paul here to explain himself.Blowback, in and of itself, was not mentioned Saturday, though Paul often alluded to it, going as far back as World War I, “which (President) Woodrow Wilson got us into unnecessarily, and drew the lines in the Middle East that we’re suffering for today.”Beltram said he agreed with Paul on most issues except foreign policy, and that he believes the Texan converted some Upstaters to his revolution with Saturday’s speech.“I left feeling like a hero,” Beltram said. “I got more positive comments after that event than all the other presidential events combined.”Read more about Paul’s visit in the Herald-Journal on Sunday.
2 comments:
I'm a member of the Piedmont Triad Meetup Group. Each of the groups in North Carolina had members in a caravan for the events in South Carolina. The speeches Dr. Paul gave were great. There was wave after wave of standing ovations. The rally in Greenville had seating for nearly eleven hundred people. I counted the chairs myself. The back was not filled completely. I would say there were between nine hundred to a thousand people at the event. I heard someone say that the attendance was comparable to the size of Hillary's crowd. For the future we really need turnstiles at the entrace to get a count on people coming in.
HaroldC
Hey Harold...on of the workers there said they set up about 1200 seats.
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