All politics is local

Especially here.   Given the first-in-the-nation status we have during the Presidential primary candidate selection process, GOP hopefuls are passing through weekly now, with daily visits on the horizon.

Yours truly is definitely curious about the unique process we go through here, so what better way to learn how it works than to dive right in?  Regardless of whether or not I will vote in November 2012 for a Republican candidate (which very much depends on who that is), I at least need to latch on to one of them, to experience the process up close and personal.  So... here's my guy:

Dr. Paul (a surgeon by trade) was a Libertarian party stalwart years ago (I actually voted for him for President on that ticket in 1988), despite occupying one of Texas's seats in the US House of Representatives as a Republican off and on since 1976.

His first appearance here was last month, shortly after his campaign office opened in a far northern suburb of the metro. I scooted across the river to the east side of downtown to snag a chair in a pair of crowded meeting rooms in the local Embassy Suites. The organizers underestimated people's interest, and we were busting out the walls.

His next visit was yesterday for a more "informal" meet and greet at a local indie coffeehouse.

Well, sort of indie. It does have more than one location. But then, nowhere near as many as Dunn Bros. in St. Paul, (which to my mind, despite its indie rep, lost its indie status when they set up shop in the MSP airport right beside Chili's. Boo.)

This time the local media was there, and the space was more intimate, so I could scoop up that heretofore elusive handshake and personal greeting from the congressman.

So why Ron Paul, you ask? (or even if you don't ask...)

I haven't been one of those straight-ticket Republicans since 1972 (when I still couldn't vote, anyway.) My support for any political candidate has been situational. I have to have confidence in not only the candidate's competence, character, and common sense, but in their policy positions in at least 2/3 of the pressing issues of the day. And while I have a little disagreement with Rep. Paul, there isn't nearly as much of it as with the Santorums, Pawlentys, Bachmanns, and Romneys in the field.

Ron Paul is the most "small government fiscal conservative" of the lot, and with debt issues and defaults looming at federal and state levels, that's fine with me.

What's more, he's not interested in mandating that his views on social issues become the law of the land. In a pluralistic society, that doesn't work. We are not the Massachusetts Bay Colony circa 1650 any more, and we shouldn't pretend that we are.

I'm convinced that in the end, the great master narrative that relativizes all others (that of God's grace and wisdom incarnate, overcoming fallen humanity's alienation from God and from each other) will win out. But we will only delay that process if we don't communicate it winsomely, as well as allow it to compete with alternatives in the marketplace of ideas. Imposing on others by force of law our interpretation of ultimate truth (and we are all interpreters of truth, not the embodiment of it) is only tyranny in religious clothing. And Ron Paul is about as far from a wielder of tyranny as I have yet seen.