http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html
This is riduculous. You have to scroll way down to see Paul, who is 2nd after Romney against Obama!
I smell desperation. Don’t you?
Romney’s not going to hold up. If Ron Paul is cleary 2nd among the Republicans I expect a lot more to come to silence him.
I guess the advantage to Ron Paul not being seen as a legitimate candidate is that the other candidates cut each other down all the time and don’t attack Paul much. They all knock themselves off the top and leave Paul standing as the leader before long.
Well, the thing is he is 4/5th in the Republican primary (according to polls), but 2nd against Obama. He might not make the primary though he might actually beat Obama.
You have to go back to every other election and remember who was “winning” at this time. 2007 everyone was talking about Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. Mitt Romney spent a fortune win the Iowa straw poll and was never really heard from again. The only reason you know him now is because obviously he’s running again.
I was about to say that the race this year was quite a bit more certain than 2008 until I realized that very recently Cain shot up and Perry plunged. Well, we’ll see. The thing is, according to the RCP chart, Paul has simply been staying flat among primary voters.
The danger of Ron Paul is in the general election, less so in the primaries which goes to illustrate how the party system restricts entry to politics, particularly national politics. I suspect that RP is, indeed, planning to go independent if he’s once again snubbed by the Republican Establishment. I suspect this because he quit Congress this time around… that means he’s all-in.
As an independent, RP would be a far bigger menace than Ross Perot in 1992… Perot managed to garner full 20% of the popular vote. Compare Perot to Paul… well, there is no comparison, Ron Paul is the real deal and if Perot could pull down 20% (fully half of what the winning candidate had), just imagine what Ron Paul could pull down.
I think the Establishment doesn’t know what to do with him. They’d prefer to just ignore him and marginalize him and hope he goes away but they’re starting to see that their 2008 tactics just might not work this time around. If he does make a go as an independent, they have to start cornering him on issues now, which is what I think that Meet The Press interview was about. They can’t just keep asking if he’d vote for the Civil Rights Act, they actually have to start positioning themselves to shoot him down on his issues during the GE.
Clayton -
Seriously? You honestly don’t remember 2 months ago when the “top tier” was “Perry, Bachmann, and Romney”? You really don’t remember all this? Whoever said the public has almost no memory wasn’t kidding.
You mean he’d have a harder time beating Obama than getting the Republican nomination?..I’m really not sure where that’s coming from.
Less than half the Americans polled could name a single person on the Republican debate stage last week…including Romney, Perry, and Paul. Name recognition plays a large role, whether you like it or not. And again I have no idea where you’re coming up with this stuff…“a far bigger menace than Ross Perot in 1992”? Sure Paul’s the real deal, but Perot had a bottomless pit of money to draw from, and didn’t need a single moneybomb. The guy spent $60 million…20 years ago. You want to know what that would roughly be today? Almost $100 million. He bought 30 minute and full hour-long segments on major television networks, and in the final days of the campaign was spending $5 million [$7.7million] per day. And yes he got 19% of the vote…and 0% of the Electoral College.
Paul has enough of a battle with the media as it is…you seriously think you could get his name mentioned on a single airwave after the Republican convention if he wasn’t the nominee? You’re dreaming.