Ron Paul is nothing to be frightened of, because though he may prevent the onerous Romney from getting the nomination, in combination with the Santorum and Gingrich delegates, his people are not strong enough to get Paul the nomination.
So right now, the real conservative leaders are trying to figure out who they will nominate who is acceptable to the 60-70% of delegates who are conservatives. And no, if given the choice, it won’t be Santorum or Gingrich either.
Whoever it is will have to embrace the sane parts of the Paul agenda to get their support, tempered with strong conservatism on conservative’s core issues that are not repulsive to the Paul delegates.
And this could be a huge victory for both conservatives and for the country.
This potential conservative nominee is going to have to both give promises and get promises from the congressional Republican leadership for support if he hopes to win big, and the conservatives are going to watch this like a hawk to make sure that the leadership does not try to force him to “moderate”, which would ruin his presidency.
Some key issues I can imagine:
1) Giant cutbacks in the size and power and spending of the federal government. An end to “czars” and presidential signing statements and abuse of recess appointments.
2) Restoration of the 4th Amendment and the downgrading of the Intelligence-Police behemoth, to reasonable levels of security. “Foreigners are the enemy, not the American people.”
3) Securing the border with Mexico and an end to a lot of the stupid, internationalist treaties.
4) Massive scale energy development along with the return of a lot of the federally taken lands to the states.
5) The appointment of rock solid conservatives to the Supreme Court and federal bench.
6) Yes, the military is going to have to take some hits as well, but this needs to be done sensibly, such as much tighter controls over major weapons systems programs. We cannot afford any more destroyers that cost as much as aircraft carriers.
7) Get the federal government and most insurance companies out of routine medical care. This alone will drop its price by 50%.
Senator Rand Paul