With a candidate as weak as Obama? Yes.
Ron Paul has had some very vibrant supporters, that sort of enthusiasm really would have been an asset. Moreover, it would have signaled that the GOP is not about "things as usual"/"just talk" but rather about actually addressing problems rather than, at most, acting as a defensive/holding-pattern.
Ron Paul would have been laughed off the stage during the first debate. And imagine someone to the left of Obama on foreign policy.
Paul couldn’t win a state-wide election, let alone a national one.