Ron Paul won't seek reelection in 2012

Ron Paul, the perpetual presidential candidate whose cult of personality is so fervent that there is an entire blimp suggesting we “Google Ron Paul,” will not seek re-election to Congress. The Texas Republican told TheFacts.com, the Brazoria County, Texas, news site, that he will instead focus on winning (?) the presidency. “I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election,” he said. Nice job to the gang of journalists in Brazoria County, Texas, for snagging the domain name “TheFacts.com.”

Anyway, his son, Rand, a first-term U.S. senator representing Kentucky, gave Slate’s Dave Weigel a statement on the decision:

History will record the legislative record of Ron Paul as an extraordinary one—perhaps unparalleled. There probably has never been a more consistent believer in limited government in Congress. America deserves a statesman like Ron Paul as her president, a man I am proud to call my father.

A former obstetrician who represents a district along the Gulf coast, Paul was first elected to the House in 1976. He served four terms before stepping down in 1984. He then ran again in 1996, after the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress. He has held the seat since, winning recent elections with relative ease.

Paul has a passionate but limited fan base among conservatives, some of whom view him as the father of the modern Tea Party. He has long advocated more limited government, more individual liberty and less federal spending, as well as an end to the Federal Reserve.

Paul has broken with many Republicans by pushing for the decriminalization of illegal drugs on a federal level as well as a significant cutback in U.S. involvement in foreign countries. Polls on average show him attracting about 7 percent of the GOP primary vote. He believes that the increased prominence of the issues he has long spotlighted -- as evidenced by the rise of the Tea Party movement -- will help boost his latest presidential bid.

"The country has changed, the support has changed, the number of volunteers has changed," he told the Wall Street Journal. "The country has [now] recognized so much of what I'm talking about."

Paul's son, Rand Paul, was elected to the Senate last year from Kentucky and shares many of his father's beliefs.