Ron Paul

Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American author, activist, medical doctor, and former politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977, and again from 1979 to 1985, as well as for Texas's 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, he sought the presidency of the United States, first as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988, and then as a candidate for the Republican Party in 2008 and 2012.

A self-described constitutionalist, Paul is a critic of several of the federal government's policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and tax policy, as well as the military–industrial complex, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. He has also been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act and the NSA surveillance programs. In 1976, Paul formed the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), and in 1985 was named the first chairman of the conservative PAC Citizens for a Sound Economy, both free-market groups focused on limited government. He has been characterized as the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement, a fiscally conservative political movement started in 2007 and popularized in 2009 that is largely opposed to interventionism.

Paul served as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1968, and worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s. When his son, Rand Paul, was elected as a U.S. senator from Kentucky in 2011, Paul became the first U.S. representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate. He is a senior fellow and distinguished counselor of the Mises Institute, and has published a number of books and promoted the ideas of economists of the Austrian School, such as Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises, during his political campaigns. He has cited President Grover Cleveland as his preferred model of presidency.