It is said that there are few second acts in American politics. But when 61-year-old Ron Paul was sworn in last week as a member of the House from Texas, he began the third act of an unusual political career during which he has won national office five times without deviating from his libertarian principles.

Twenty years ago, freshman Rep. Ron Paul was one of only four GOP House members to endorse Ronald Reagan's challange of President Gerald Ford. After losing a U.S. Senate bid in 1984, Dr. Paul became so disillusioned with George Bush that he ran against him as the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in 1988. He won only 432,000 votes, but many now acknowledge he was prescient in predicting a Bush administration would founder. At the time everyone believed that Dr. Paul, a physician, had ended his own political career through malpractice. Then last year he defeated a four-term incumbent in the GOP primary and went on to win the general election in a Houston-area district in which minorities are 34% of the population.

Dr. Paul returns to a Congress he says is more attuned to his "constitutionalist" views of government. He is under no illusions that "the era of big government is really over, but now we're at least having real arguments about it." To Dr. Paul, any federal government activities that go beyond the strictly defined limits set by the Founding Fathers are unconstitutional. What makes him truly unusual is that he always votes that way, and still wins in marginal districts.

His refusal to compromise was legendary during his previous stint in Congress. Dr. Paul voted against federal programs in his own front yard, including NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center and the Houston Medical Center. Business interests were horrified, and in 1980 gave so much money to his Democratic challanger that he outspent the incumbent Dr. Paul by two to one. Dr. Paul still won by 6,000 votes.

While Dr. Paul's record prompted vocal complaints from the establishment, he won quiet respect and support from working-class voters. "In polo clubs and board rooms, those who want to keep big business in bed with big government want me silenced", he would tell voters. "They will do everything to keep your money flowing into their vaults." But Dr. Paul is no class warrior: "I want more rich people. I'm against the politically powerful using regulations and taxpayer money to prosper at the expense of others."

Not surprisingly, Dr. Paul has never gotten more than trace amounts of PAC money. Last year, Dr. Paul raised $1.7 million by drawing on a nationwide army of 10,000 single-issue contributors, including supporters of the gold standard, flat tax, and reform of the Food and Drug Administration.

True to form, the entire Republican establishment opposed Dr. Paul when he announced his comeback. His opponent in the GOP primary was Rep. Greg Laughlin, a moderate Democrat who switched parties in 1995 with the promise that Republican leaders would back him against all comers. They delivered in spades. The National Republican Congressional Committee abandoned neutrality and paid for "push polling" and phone banks that painted Dr. Paul as an extremist who wanted to legalize drugs. A local Christian Coalition leader attacked him for opposing a mandatory V-chip for TV's.

Dr. Paul responded by citing his support from Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and American Conservative Union president David Keene. But his trump card was his credential as a pro-life obstetrician who had delivered more than 4,000 local babies. His TV ads showed him in a white lab coat saying that no one understood better than he the damage drugs can do but that the "federal war on drugs has failed just as the war on poverty has." His polls showed that a clear majority of those who knew of his opposition to federal drug laws nonetheless supported him. He ousted Rep. Laughlin by 54% to 46% in the primary.

If any GOP member had reason not to vote for Speaker Newt Gingrich, it might be Dr. Paul: The speaker came to his district to campaign for Rep. Laughlin. But Dr. Paul gladly voted for Mr. Gingrich. "No one talks about the real ethics disaster in Washington," he says. "It's that many members of Congress will listen to any argument against a bill except for two: that it's not moral or that it's not constitutional."

This kind of talk explains why House members have always had an ambivalent relationship with Dr. Paul. While affable and soft-spoken, he has often attacked the perks of Capitol Hill. He introduced his first term limits bill in the 1970s, and once offered a resolution to reduce congressional pay by the rate of inflation. In 1980, a majority of Republicans favored President Carter's reinstatement of draft registration. Dr. Paul told his conservative colleagues they were more interested in registering their children than they were their guns. "Ron Paul constantly reminds politicians when they are inconsistent about freedon," says former Democratic Rep. John Burton, now a California state senator. "He was an incredible asset to the House."

No doubt the media spin will be different. Rep. Paul will be compared to departed House firebrand Bob Dornan, or labeled "eccentric" or "ineffective." Instead, Washington insiders might want to appreciate a successful politician whose belief in free markets and civil liberties is unswerving. Michael Barone, co-author of American Politics, once noted in a profile of Dr. Paul that he's called an "oddball." He then concluded: "Of course, in Rep. Paul's view, it's the rest of the nation's politicians, with their devotion to an inherently inflationary currency and self-defeating government programs, who are the oddballs."

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