Ron Paul faithful vow to carry his libertarian ideals forward

The Ron Paul revolution isn't necessarily over.

For true believers, it's only just getting started.

After outlasting every other GOP presidential candidate except Sen. John McCain, the libertarian Texas congressman released a YouTube video Thursday night that is widely understood to signal the official end of his grass-roots campaign.

"The presidential campaign will soon wind down," Paul said, though he encouraged efforts to gain votes and delegates in states that haven't yet had primaries.

On the evening of Paul's announcement, 18 of his supporters were gathered in a private room at a Roseville Round Table Pizza. They had not yet heard about his video, but their goal nonetheless was to regroup, refocus and re-energize in the aftermath of Paul's Texas presidential primary fizzle.

Rumor of his swan song trickled in halfway through the meeting – when a member read aloud from a paper someone had printed off an ABC News Web blog.

For a moment, silence fell across the room.

The attendees, though shaken, quickly regrouped. After all, they tended to agree, the media can hardly be trusted when it comes to Ron Paul. How else to explain the dearth of his coverage?

They decided to verify the news later.

Paul's campaign, always relegated to the margins of mainstream media and political party focus, has picked up a devoted following across the country among those who sympathize with his strong libertarian principles.

Many – including several of those at Round Table on Thursday – have gotten involved in politics for the first time, largely organizing through Internet groups such as Meetup.com.

Earlier Thursday evening, with the smell of pizza and the sound of children's voices floating into the room, George Hudson, 68, called the meeting to order.

After a momentary flash of disappointment – "We seem to be short on people and I don't understand it" – he laid out the meeting's agenda. "The question on my mind, and I guess on everyone's mind, is: Where do we go from here?"

"I walked in the room and it seemed almost dead, like somebody died in here," said Dan Frey, 32, who runs a window business in Roseville. "I just want to remind everybody this is bigger than Ron Paul. This is about the movement."

"This is about America," Hudson agreed.

Over beers and salads, they spoke fervently about the ideals their candidate has espoused – among them a non-interventionist foreign policy, the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and the dramatic shrinking of what they see as an inexcusably large federal government.

They also echoed his concern – generally dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the mainstream – that the United States, Canada and Mexico are on the verge of doing away with all borders.

"I don't think there's anything much more urgent than keeping the United States the United States," Hudson said, to nods.

A retired water purification business owner, Hudson has been a Paul supporter since 1976. He started the Roseville Ron Paul Meetup group in November, and had been thrilled in recent months by Paul's momentum.

"I can tell you that he took off like a grass fire across this country," Hudson said.

But not with enough voters. While he was re-elected to Congress from Texas on March 4, Paul received just 5 percent of that state's vote for the Republican presidential race, a fact many at the Round Table meeting attributed to a conspiracy involving Diebold voting machines.

In California, Paul received 4 percent of the GOP primary vote.

The 100-plus members of the Roseville group (and the 400-plus members of the Sacramento group who met Saturday evening) have waved banners over freeways, gone door-to-door with campaign literature, and held protests and marches.

They've talked up Paul at restaurants, on light-rail trains and at grocery stores.

After the news of his swan song Thursday, there was some talk of ways Paul might "miraculously" end up as the Republican presidential candidate. Something could happen to McCain – a scandal, maybe, or a revolt by disenchanted party members.

"He could slip on a banana peel," joked Hudson.

Most, like Chuck Armour, 57, a regional sales representative for a transmission company, put Paul's chances at "realistically, very, very slim."

That pointed to the real question of the hour: Was the momentum centered on one man, or could it be refocused on a larger ideological struggle?

They spoke with somewhat renewed enthusiasm about letter-writing campaigns, running for public office, a tax strike day on April 15, even a possible march on Washington, D.C. They could reach people at farmers markets in the spring and summer.

Jason Bertels, 19, talked to Chris Smith, 24, about starting a club on the Sierra College campus.

Around 9 p.m., after making a few jokes about the intelligence of Democrats, Hudson brought the meeting to an official close.

Most people lingered for another hour or so.

Among them was Maggie Bloom, a 45-year-old merchandiser who rearranges grocery stores' potato chips displays and spends two hours a day chatting about politics over the Internet.

"I flat refuse to vote for 'McHillObama,' " she said.

Robin Love, a 49-year-old massage therapist, wondered aloud whether people would have the "courage" to write in Paul's name on the November ballot.

"Am I the only one thinking that?" she asked.

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