My comment was not about the current situation, but rather a comment on Ron Paul's skills as a leader. Intellectually sound, but not always able to convince anyone of the wisdom of his ways.
Unfortunately, I think any politician who is intellectually sound and has the habit of telling the public the truth...will accurately be accused of being unpersuasive.
That is the nature of democratic politics...the charlatans and demogogues will always tell the public exactly what it wants to hear.
As Mencken wrote, "politicians will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants. They’ll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable, because they understand that votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense"