The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

May 31, 2007

Pastor wants to be next governor

Mannix Porterfield

Butch Paugh remembers the time one could buy a dozen hot dogs for a buck.

Now, the same dollar barely fetches a cup of coffee, minus the dog.

“I could still buy 12 for a dollar if I had a silver dollar,” Paugh said Thursday. “They’re worth 12 paper dollars.”

Which is one reason why the Nettie pastor and sales worker intends to become West Virginia’s next governor — helping put America back on the gold standard so all money is backed up by metals.

Paugh is running under the Constitution Party banner, the first member of the national party to get on the ballot in this state.

A pastor of two churches, he conducts five national programs broadcast each week in his “Call to Decision” ministry.

“We’re on the Internet, too, covering the whole country and the world,” he said.

Paugh wants to turn back the clock so West Virginia and the nation handle business the way it once did, absent the burdensome tax structure but with a strong emphasis on biblical principles.

“We need to go back to the constitutional rights of citizens, states rights, gun rights, liberty, and stop the murder of innocent babies — back to where we used to be,” Paugh told The Register-Herald.

His campaign telephone number is a play on the year America declared for Independence — 1-877-WVA1776.

Paugh said he would “love” to see the Ten Commandments posted in all of West Virginia’s public schools.

“So children would know right from wrong, so they know there is a Creator and that we didn’t come from monkeys,” he said, denouncing the teaching of evolution in the classrooms.

Paugh said he had been approached by Constitution Party members elsewhere and went into much prayer before deciding “I felt like I was led” to file his candidacy papers with the secretary of state’s office.

Paugh’s party plans to conduct a seminar Saturday in Ghent, drawing members from a number of states, including Alaska.

“Just call me a Bible-believing Christian,” he said when asked to define his religious affiliation.

The 58-year-old candidate and his wife have three grown sons and five grandchildren.

Paugh said he not only wants to restore biblical morality in the public sector but to abandon the Federal Reserve system that relies on a currency of paper dollars not backed by either silver or gold.

“It’s worthless,” he said of today’s money system. “It’s about 1 cent to what it was in 1913.

“The first thing I want to abolish is the real estate and property taxes. I’d like for people to own their own homes and not have to pay rent to the state. With our personal property taxes, there is no liberty. You own nothing.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com

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