Didja read the article?
It starts out observing that Ron Paul will not be the Republican nominee - so don’t go into how bad it would be if he is.
The point of the article is that he’s getting rousing the libertarian subset of the Republican party - and that it’s a force to be reconed with.
Ron Paul won’t be the nominee. We know that. Nobody seriously contends he will.
HOWEVER, he’s making it clear that there’s a whole lotta Republicans that agree with him on a lot of issues, and while he won’t “win” by being the nominee (much less POTUS), he has already “won” by garnering lots of support and not being easily dismissed.
There’s a lot of us who, while perhaps put off by some of his comments, agree with him on a LOT of points which other contenders are missing.
Don’t underestimate the influence of the libertarian branch of the Republican party; a successful candidate won’t.
Ron Paul is rousing the moonbat subset of the Republican party. True constitutionalist as well as true conservatives think his stances are bunk. Republicans fund him in the hopes he runs as a 3rd party candidate and in doing so pulls votes from the Democrats- not because his message “resonates.” He’s given libertarianism a black-eye.
he has already “won” by garnering lots of support and not being easily dismissed.
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Your statement doesn’t convince me. The same thing could be said about Algore-global warming, gay marriage, open borders, gun control, Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton-racism, etc.
That is, unless one considers winning differently than I do. No protest campaign is foolish enuf to eliminate all positions that others can support.
I doubt it. Once Ron Paul slinks away in defeat, those folks will fall away once again, muttering darkly about being "betrayed" or something like that. They were not a force before, and they will not be a force later -- and they're not even a force now.
What they will do, is join the ranks of the "internet peripheral party," along with the Deaniacs, MoveOn types, and so on -- a rather amorphous blob of folks whose political instincts are more driven by emotion than practicality.