Yesterday, presidential candidate Ron Paul spoke in a conference call to a group of student journalists, including a reporter from The Daily, about his views on various critical issues.

On his support from youth:

“They like the Constitution, the young people like that. They like principle, and they also like the concept of personal liberty<\p>--<\p>that is, it’s your life to lead as you choose and people don’t like to be told by the government everything they can do.”

On abortion:

“It isn’t so much protecting only the mother’s rights. You have this other life we have to deal with. To deny that a baby<\p>--<\p>right before birth<\p>--<\p>has no rights, sort of defies logic and legal standing. So I just come down on the side of saying that both lives have to be protected.”

On the war:

“One of the issues that has gotten attention has been the war issue … because about 70 percent of American people right now are frustrated with the war, and the burden of war falls on young people too. Not only financially, but for those individuals who have to go over and fight, and the threat that the war may be spread. The fact that the selective service still exists, many people are concerned there may be resumption of the draft.”

On being a dark horse candidate:

“I put my name out there reluctantly, not believing there would be very many young people or very much money. But we’ve broken all kinds of records. We raised [$6 million] in one day, and yesterday we had over [5,000] new people joining us.”

On economics:

“A weak dollar means big, big trouble for every one of us. That means the cost of everybody’s education is going to skyrocket, the cost of energy is going to skyrocket, and we’re trying to solve the problems of inflation with inflation. What we have to do is we have to quit the inflation, we have to allow the bad debt to be liquidated, we have to lower taxes dramatically, we have to cut spending, we have to balance the budget, we have to restore confidence in the dollar.”

On the effect of evolution on global warming:

“I don’t take a position that there’s no evidence for evolution, I’m just saying there’s no proof of anything<\p>--<\p>that’s why it’s called a theory. And I don’t know why there can’t be a combination of a creator bringing about our creation and our life at the same time.”

On his polarizing candidacy:

“I am very, very determined, but I work very hard at trying not to polarize. I deliberately make an attempt not to be provocative, but not to ever give up on the principle and some people might not understand that completely. Once they discover the principles of liberty and what our constitution says and what the traditions of America say, they get really excited about this.”