Yeah, because most people are sensible enough to know when to be afraid of a loony politician. Most people will never vote for Paul because of his insanely stupid foreign and defense policy views. Most conservatives are never going to support a man who thinks the traitor Bradley Manning is a hero and a patriot.
Seriously - If Ron Paul were the Republican Choice @ a National Level - would all the haters vote for Obama?
If that happened (and it won't), most will vote 3rd party. In general, I do not believe in 3rd party voting. For the most part I think it is a useless cop-out. However, in the case of Ron Paul versus Hussein, I might have to go 3rd party. The reason being is simple. Ron Paul will never get his domestic agenda passed. He will get nearly nothing done on that front. What Ron Paul actually could do is put in place his incredibly dangerous foreign and defense policies. Congress can't really stop much of what he wants to do on that front. So if we get Paul, we are likely to get the worst of Paul rather than the actual good stuff like his domestic and regulation cuts. All of this is just a mental exercise though. Ron Paul will never win the GOP nomination. He is just not even close to representative of most Republicans - which makes perfect sense considering the fact that Ron Paul is a libertarian and not a conservative.
Neither was McCain.