Ron Paul was speaking quietly without notes when he hit his first applause line. He didn’t signal the audience with emphasis or gesture or expression, but buried in his matter-of-fact tone was a promise to cut a trillion dollars the first year of his presidency. The crowd responded.
Iowans were standing shoulder-to-shoulder all around the outside edge of the packed upstairs room at a public library in Boone. At first glance, they might have seem bored with a political rally that boiled down to a low-key lecture on history, economics, and government, but they were listening intently, and they came alive at the next applause line: “I’d bring all the troops home,” said the Texas congressman. “Bring ’em home.”...