Ron on the Air

David Weigel | August 8, 2007

Ron Paul's campaign has its first TV ad up in Iowa, a plug for the candidate and a plea to vote in the Ames Straw Poll:

I've been wondering when/if Paul would have media focusing on his more traditional (in the post-Bob Taft sense) GOP positions—taxes, abortion—and soft-pedaling Iraq and the drug war. Here's the first of it.

(Barring some sort of crisis I'll be at Ames on Saturday and have a report about it shortly thereafter.)

UPDATE: Ben Smith is seeing all kinds of Paulania in Iowa:

There's a huge billboard on the drive to the Des Moines airport promising that Paul will both end the war and abolish the IRS.

And as I drove by it, I heard a radio ad touting Paul's legislation to catch Osama using an archaic legal instrument called a letter of marque and reprisal — to, essentially, hire a bounty hunter.

Only in the ad, which I can't find online, bounty hunters are referred to as "stealth warriors," who provide a method both cheaper and more Christian (!) than war.

On the way to O'Hare airport on Monday, at the blue line Addison L stop, I saw a hand-made Paul sign hanging on the overpass.