Ron Paul announces South Carolina campaign chairman

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on Thursday appointed Michael Vasovski, a former candidate for the House who lost his primary contest to Tea Party freshman Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), as chairman of his South Carolina campaign.

Vasovski, like Paul, is a longtime doctor, and founded a free medical clinic in Aiken, S.C.

“As a sole medical practitioner, I am also a small business owner, and know full well the burdens placed on small businesses by the federal government,” Vasovski said in a news release. “Dr. Paul is the only presidential candidate with a serious plan to reduce such regulations and cut $1 trillion from the federal budget in his first year in office. I am honored to support Ron Paul’s campaign for the Republican nomination.”

To some extent, Paul’s choice of Vasovski underscores the difficulty Paul has had attracting current elected officials and establishment Republicans to endorse or head his campaign operations. Other than his son Rand, who represents Kentucky in the Senate, the only federal officeholders to endorse the Texas congressman are Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.).

But what Vasovski might lack in campaign experience, he makes up for in ideological alignment: According to his campaign website, the doctor invested his retirement savings in American Eagle gold coins to signal his solidarity with Paul’s call to return to the gold standard.

Nor have endorsements necessarily translated into traditional success at the polls: Mitt Romney, who counts more than 30 federal officeholders as endorsers, leads South Carolina with 25 percent of GOP voters, according to a Time magazine poll released Wednesday. But Herman Cain, who has no major endorsements, trails by just 2 percentage points, while Paul rounds out the top three with 12 percent of those surveyed.

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