For all of the bashing that Paul gets here, he is still closer to Reagan’s principles than the ‘top tier’ of GOP candidates and some of the 2nd tier as well.
While you may not want to think of him as a Republican in some ways, who is all that proud of the pubbies after what they have done over the last 6 years?
I like Paul, but I believe that he is wrong on the war and thus will not vote for him. Duncan Hunter gets my vote, so far. I just think that you are all doing yourselves and your favored candidate and the GOP a disservice by being so nasty to his supporters. Assuming even as he does that he will not get the nomination, those voters will vote for someone. Don’t you want to win them to your side?
If I may jump on a soapbox here, I think you've hit on the core of this. For most Conservatives, we believe that the #1 responsibility of the government is national defense. If it wasn't for this issue, I doubt many would scrutinize Paul in the slightest, but, because he has made his opposition to our current national defense position the centerpiece of campaign platform, it draws into question the legitimacy of his conservative values, versus, being a populist. If this were any other year, in peacetime, with nothing going on of major importance, then Paul may not get the scrutiny from Conservatives. But, because Paul is so vocally against something we hold as a fundamental issue, it makes us question his sincerity on the other stances he takes. What we are finding, is, like with the earmark issue, Paul takes a populist position, taking every side of the issue, and tweaking the way he approaches it so he is all things to all people. That seems to be the case with many other things. On abortion, he is pro-life, yet he can make the pro-choice people not worry too much as he has voted against some federal restrictions (such as taking minors across State lines and making killing an unborn in the coruse of a crime illegal.) This way he can tell the pro-abortionists, don't worry, I'm not a radical right-winger, I'll let you take care of the issue.
Basically, IMHO, he is a populist who talks like a Constitutionalist.
That's enough of my soapbox... I've promised it before but I just read something that has made me decide to stop challenging Paulites.. it seems, according to their internal forums, that they want these fights because it is attention and gets them high Google ratings and one of their strategies is to 'egg people on' to get the fights to continue...and thus, the attention to continue on Paul