Congressman Ron Paul,

Paul, thank you for talking with us.

Good to be with you today.

You're running against a long list of Republicans seeking the presidential,

the Republican presidential nomination, many of them very conservative.

One in particular Michelle Bachman appealing to the Tea Party.

Why are you more qualified than any of them?

I see them as defending the status quo much

more so than I do because you know if you look at my foreign policy nobody's coming

close although they're getting more sympathetic.

I want to bring all the troops home.

When it comes to personal liberties and what's going on at our airports, I don't like the Patriot

Act and they tend to support the Patriot Act.

When it comes to monetary policy, they try to avoid it.

Yet, money is one half of all our transaction.

We're in a mess.

So I concentrate a whole lot on the Federal Reserve

and monetary policy and of course the spending

is a big issue with me but it's been that way for a long time.

Well speaking of spending Washington is in the grips right now of this huge divide split over what to do about the

debt limit, what to do about the deficit.

You have said you've never voted to raise the debt limit, which pits you against not only the president and the Democrats but the Republican leadership,

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