Ron Paul May Repeat Presidental Bid
NEW YORK (
) -- Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) says the chances he will run for President in 2012 are "at least 50-50," according to a front page article in
The New York Times
Monday.
In 2011, Paul, the author of "End the Fed," will lead the subcommittee in the House of Representatives that oversees the central bank. The notoriously secretive Fed has come under sharp scrutiny from Congress in the wake of the financial crisis, though it came away with expanded powers.
In addition to overseeing large depository banks like
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
and
Citigroup
(C) - Get Report
, it will also oversee investment banking-focused institutions like
Goldman Sachs
(GS) - Get Report
and
Morgan Stanley
(MS) - Get Report
, as well as systemically important financial companies like
AIG
(AIG) - Get Report
and the financial unit of
General Electric
(GE) - Get Report
.
Paul is the father of Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky) and both are big favorites of the tea party. The article says many supporters of Ron Paul have touted the idea of a Paul/Paul presidential ticket, but that such an idea was a surprise to the father when the reporter from the
Times
brought it up.
Paul received just over one million votes, good for fourth place, when he ran in the 2008 Republican primary. In an
interview
with
TheStreet
, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods political analyst Brian Gardner described Paul as bringing "intellectual heft" to his oversight role, though he thinks a proposal to end the Fed would garner just 10 votes in the House of Representatives.
--
Written by Dan Freed in New York
.
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