” The Republican nominee MUST win over independents, libertarians, and populists while retaining the traditional GOP base”
But not opposites.
The winner will pull many, but not all from each one of those camps, here at FR for instance we are conservative independents, conservative republicans, and conservative libertarians, but (almost) none of us share anything with many, many of the Paul supporters.
That is a lot different than Paul attracting you, along with the people in the picture, and StormFront, and David Duke’s organization, and the truthers, and Hollywood leftists, the Paul phenomena is not the same and you cannot ignore the totality of the group movement that you have joined with.
You are sadly mistaken. Most of Paul's support comes from conservatives angry over the big spending, big government and prolonged war. You also have libertarians who have been ignored by the GOP, and the populist right concerned about illegal immigration & the NAU.
Paul may not win over registered Republicans in the primaries, but keep in mind that the GOP base as a whole has dwindled drastically. Fred, Mitt, Huckster, Rudy, McCain -- they're all chasing after that small pie of registered Republicans and then you have a guy like Paul who is bringing in newcomers, the libertarians, the independents, the cross-over Democrats, and the conservatives angry at Bush back into the GOP to vote for him.
If Dr. Paul wins the nomination, you can basically stick a fork into the Democratic Party.