No one knows who will win from the pool of serious contenders, but Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Alan Keyes, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin will not be among the actual contenders for the Presidency, they are merely there for the chance to be on the fringes of grandeur and to keep a following.
I don’t know who is going to win, but we all know who isn’t even on the list of possible winners, and Ron Paul is on that list.
Well, I knew what you were going to say, so I put my answer in.
If you don’t know who is going to win you don’t know who isn’t.
You either know or you don’t. You don’t.
This is a primary race. You vote for who you want for the primary. You don’t go all situational for the primaries. That’s how you get RINOs. Throw out the RINOs in the primaries. Then, for the general, don’t go for the 3d party. You worked hard to get the guy you wanted in the primary, so you either got your guy or you didn’t.
You seem to be angling for a McCain II situation, talking about electability and whatnot. Independents and Moderates won’t vote for a Conservative (they say). We need to nominate a Moderate so we can win (they say).
I believe that if Ron Paul got the nomination, he’d do as well against Obama as a generic Republican. If the economy is as bad in 2 odd years, the Republican would likely win.
So, Ron Paul deserves to be considered at least a second tier candidate based on the evidence. But he’s not the front runner, the likely nominee or anything.
Ralph Nader, Alan Keyes, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin were not winning Straw Polls.