Below The Beltway

While Republicans were spending the day yesterday at Day One of a Gustav-shortened Republican National Convention, Ron Paul and about 12,000 of his supporters were across town at the Target Center holding what they called the Rally For The Republic:

MINNEAPOLIS — Ron Paul has no plan to set foot in the Republican convention next door in St. Paul. If he were to try, he said, party officials have told him that he would have to be chaperoned. So the 10-term congressman and presidential candidate held his own party, a nine-hour “Rally for the Republic” that amounted to a one-day counter-convention.

As many as 12,000 disillusioned Republicans and independents, according to organizers, converged on the Target Center, an NBA basketball arena, for a boisterous push-back against the Republican establishment.

In a lively speech, Rep. Paul (R-Texas) thanked his supporters and asked them to keep up the fight.

“They will not welcome us with open arms, I found that out,” he said. “There is a vacuum out there, and it’s not in one political party. It’s pervasive.

“This is much bigger than the Republican Party. . . . In a true revolution, believe me, the revolution does not occur within a single party.”

Of course, as with most things Ron Paul, there were mainstream people like Tucker Carlson and then there were guys like Jesse Ventura and the two don’t necessarily mix well:

MINNEAPOLIS — Tucker Carlson, an MSNBC contributor who emceed much of Ron Paul’s rally Tuesday at the Target Center, abruptly left after former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura raised questions about Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. The issue is red meat for many Paul supporters.

Ventura questioned why, if bin Laden was the culprit, he had yet to be indicted, as he had been for other attacks. Carlson confirmed that he left in response to Ventura’s comments, saying it was “too much.”

To be honest, though, Ventura was tame compared to the unannounced “guest speaker” that somehow finagled his way onto the speaker’s list:

ABC News’ Z. Byron Wolf reports: There was a hole in the agenda for Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic.”

Between anti-war author Bill Kauffman and anti-torture lawyer Bruce Fein was a slot on the agenda for “Special Guest.”

Would it be Bob Barr, wondered some in the media? Perhaps a mainstream Republican to mend fences between Paul’s supporters and the people across the river in St. Paul at the GOP convention.

Nope. Out strolled John McManus. Who? John Birch Society board member — the group also has a booth here — and a former John Birch Society president, McManus announced that Paul would be speaking at their 50th anniversary celebration in Wisconsin this year.

(…)

McManus ended his speech, saying, “If you like Ron Paul, you’ll love the John Birch Society.”

Yea, that’s going to endear Paul and his suppporters to the sane and rational people out there.

And. although he didn’t speak for reasons that neither I nor Jazz Shaw can figure out, Bob Barr was at the Target Center talking to Paul supporters:

ABC News’ Nitya Venkataraman reports from Minneapolis: In an effort to reach out to supporters of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, 2008 Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr stopped by Paul’s Minneapolis “Rally for the Republic” to meet and greet supporters of the Texas congressman.

Barr, a former GOP congressman, told ABC News he respects Paul’s intent not to make an endorsement in the general election, and is “here today because there are thousands of people who believe we need to shrink the power, the size, the scope of the federal government.

“These are liberty-loving Americans, and those are my kind of people,” Barr exclaimed.

The Libertarian said he’s here to show support for the contender and his group of loyal supporters, many of whom are attending Tuesday’s rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The event builds on Paul’s presidential bid, during which he set a record for single-day fundraising on the Web, and in doing so, caught the attention of disenchanted members of the Republican Party.

“We’re all in this together — we believe in the same things,” Barr said.

For the most part, this is true, but as the past year as made clear while many libertarians supported Ron Paul’s campaign, not all of Ron Paul’s supports could accurately be described as libertarians. Many of them probably will vote for Barr, but I can easily see some of them supporting the hyper-nationalistic Constitution Party candidacy of Chuck Baldwin, which is about as far removed from libertarianism as you can get.

And some of them might just follow McManus, and apparently Paul, into the arms of the John Birch Society.