According to The Facts:

After serving almost 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Ron Paul told The Facts this morning he will not be seeking another term for the District 14 seat.

Paul, 75, will instead focus on his quest for the presidency in 2012.

“I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election,” Paul said. “It’s about that time when I should change tactics.”

His announcement will give enough time for anyone with aspirations for his seat to think about running, he said. Paul didn’t want to wait for filing in the 2012 primary to let people know he wasn’t seeking reelection.

“I didn’t want to hold off until in December,” he said. “I thought it shouldn’t be any later than now.”

Texas allows candidates for President to also appear on the ballot in other places, which is how Paul ran for both President and Congress in 2008.

While I believe it’s highly unlikely that Paul will get the Republican nod for President next year, I do believe he has done an excellent job opening the door for his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, to seek higher office in the future.

Additionally, the Texas Congressman has established a nationwide grassroots network of liberty-loving activists in Campaign for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty.

UPDATE: It looks like Paul may have been a casualty of Republican redistricting in Texas. Take a look at the map at the bottom of this story. If you click on the 14th District and look at the before and after, Paul loses a ton of the western portion of his district, and post-redistricting, the TX-14 creeps east toward Louisiana. From another article:

Paul’s new 14th District is smaller, nudging closer to the Louisiana border to Beaumont, areas Paul hasn’t represented before, with a greater proportion of black voters. Victoria and other western counties that have long supported Paul tacked onto first-term Rep. Blake Farenthold’s 27th district instead.

Still, the seven-term Congressman has overcome redistricting challenges before. He faces a steeper challenge in a G.O.P. field that’s criss-crossing Iowa ahead of the Ames straw poll, where he’s banking on making a big splash.

According to a CNN report, Texas Congressman Ron Paul is pulling out his secret weapon to campaign in Iowa: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky will head to the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa later this month to campaign for his father’s bid for the White House.

The younger Paul’s Iowa swing will come just before the Ames, Iowa, straw poll. GOP Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who’s making his third run for the presidency, is putting a lot of money and effort into doing well in the crucial straw poll.

This is the first time Rand Paul will campaign for his father since Ron Paul formally announced his run for president May 13. But the senator did stump for his father during swings through Iowa and New Hampshire, the first in the nation primary state, earlier this year before the elder Paul announced his candidacy.

Ron Paul headed to Kentucky twice last year to campaign for his son’s bid to win the open Senate seat.

The Paul presidential campaign told CNN the two men will not appear together during Rand Paul’s events in Iowa. The elder Paul is holding campaign events in Marshalltown and Cedar Falls, Iowa Wednesday.

“Rand Paul’s message strikes a strong chord with the Tea Party here in Iowa,” said Drew Ivers, Ron Paul’s Iowa chairman, in a statement. “His message of stopping out of control federal spending is exactly what the Republican party needs at this time.”

Earlier this year, Rand Paul considered a White House run of his own if his father passed on making a bid.

While the Elder Paul has been spreading a libertarian message in Congress for years, the Younger Paul is much more equipped to communicate that message.

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