Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican congressman from Texas who ran for president in 2008, has done well for himself speaking his mind -- no matter how unorthodox his brain waves may be. An anti-government advocate, he's known in Washington as Dr. No for consistently voting against federal programs of all sorts. He's been a never-ending critic of the Federal Reserve and an advocate of returning to the gold standard. He's not shy about expressing unconventional notions. Here's a sampling:

-- During the second GOP presidential primary debate in the 2008 campaign, Ron Paul created a fuss when he declared that the mass murderers of al-Qaida had mounted the 9/11 attacks because of U.S. policy: "They come and they attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if other foreign countries were doing that to us?"

-- At a 2007 campaign event, he called for replacing organized government with self-government. "Some people will say this won't work," he said. "They say we need government; if we didn't have it, it would be total chaos. But it would be the opposite: In some places, we would have more government, but it would be self-government. People would have the responsibility of taking care of their own lives."

-- Paul also declared during the 2008 campaign that he doesn't believe in evolution. And he called for ending foreign aid: "A federal government with nearly $8 trillion in debt has no business giving money to anybody."

-- In 2007, his campaign refused to return a donation from a known white supremacist and neo-Nazi. It said, "If a small number of individuals who hold racist beliefs want to waste their money by giving to Dr. Paul, a man who stands firmly against their small minded ideologies, then the campaign will simply use those funds to protect freedom, peace and civil liberties across our Nation."

-- This past January, Ron Paul said the U.S. government has been taken over by the CIA: "There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military."

-- During a 2006 public talk, Paul said that he believed there was an international conspiracy to "overthrow" the U.S. government and replace it with a one-world government dictatorship. He also has maintained there is a secret plot to create a North American Union, uniting Mexico, Canada and the United States in one entity sharing a single currency. And during a 2007 interview, Paul backed the calls of the so-called 9/11 truthers for a new investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks.

There are plenty of other controversial remarks that have emanated from the elder Paul. The point here is not to blame the son for the -- shall we say -- nonconformity of the father, though the two do share libertarian and conspiratorial sensibilities. Watching Rand Paul this past week -- as he gaffed his way to national prominence following his commanding Senate win in the Kentucky Republican primary -- it was clear that he was merely doing what he had seen his father do for decades: telling us what he truly believes. (That the federal government should not ban private businesses from discriminating and should not be too harsh on oil companies that commit ecological nightmares.) For Ron Paul, letting it all hang out has led to a great political career. He's served 20 years in the House, and he's been one of the most successful non-successful presidential candidates, with his failed 2008 bid securing his position as a leader of the unorganized libertarian movement. By consistently and candidly expressing his ideological quirkiness, Ron Paul has earned a prominent soapbox and a devoted national following. What child wouldn't look at this and say to himself, "That's the way you do it"?

But there's a problem (or two) with Rand Paul adopting this approach. He's not seeking to represent one conservative congressional district in Texas, where such unorthodoxy might be appreciated. Kentucky is a state that favors Republicans, but Democrats there do have a fighting chance in statewide elections. Thus, Paul's libertarian extremism may well be a liability -- especially when he insists, as do so many libertarians, on expressing the logical conclusions of his fundamental views.

Plus, Paul the Father spent years expanding his profile as an unconventional pol. He didn't parachute into a race of national interest, preaching pure libertarianism. He sort of sneaked up on the political establishment. Rand the Son, a Tea Party creation, practically appeared out of nowhere and in his first moments as a national sensation kept talking like his dad. That turned out to be dumb. He had no "honeymoon" -- and whined about that on "Good Morning America" -- and finished a disastrous week by pulling out of a scheduled appearance on "Meet the Press," joining only two other guests in the history of the show to turn tail: Louis Farrakhan and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan. He ended up being chastised by GOP chief Michael Steele, who said, "Rand Paul's philosophy got in the way of reality." How's that for an endorsement? If this quote doesn't appear in an ad for Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, who's running against Rand Paul, I'll eat my copy of "The Fountainhead." Perhaps worse for Rand, he looked like a wimp -- not a principled ideologue -- with his campaign claiming "exhaustion" as the reason for his retreat from "Meet the Press," when any lover or hater of Big Government knew that Rand Paul realized that submitting his textbook libertarianism to further scrutiny could produce more mess. (Sarah Palin, of course, defended him.)

After acting like his father, Rand Paul ran away from controversy and sacrificed an opportunity to promote and defend his bold libertarian beliefs. I wonder if before retreating he asked himself, "What would Dad do?"

www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/24/rand-paul-like-father-like-son/