As a resident of California, I am deep deep behind enemy lines. Also, I see Ron Paul as the beginning not the end. The Law of Diffusion states you need 15-18% of a marketplace for a product to begin achieving mainstream success. Due to "doomed" Ron Paul, the Liberty movement is now in that area with Libertarians like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, Gary Johnson coming to prominence.

As for disagreement on Point 3. Let me just say:

Military Facts: The U.S. Navy is larger than the next 13 navies combined
Military Facts: US Defense spending has increased by 85% since 2001
Military Facts: US Defense spending is $100 billion a year (in inflat-adjust dollars) above levels at height of Cold War
Military Facts: US Defense spending accounts for 43% of all defense spending worldwide
Military Facts: US Defense spending is 6 times the share of China, 12 times that of Russia

Yes, it's wonderful we have such a strong military, but it's all Keynesian militarism, no different than social welfare Keynesianism the Left advocates for. It's unaffordable with such huge deficits and will bankrupt us just as easily as it crushed the Soviets.

Yes, FL your points are all valid and I agree his age and speaking skills doom his candidacy for president. But many of his followers know that. What people continue to not understand is unlike Gingrich. Romney Santorum, we don't follow Ron Paul because he's a Republican, or a politician, or a 76 yr old doctor with a stilted, sometimes stumbling delivery. We follow his movement about an idea. That idea is liberty. Liberty is something both Democrats and Republicans have gradually walked away from in this country. That is why if Paul loses the GOP primaries, few of us will give our votes to another cookie cutter Republican or Democrat to advance the bankrupt welfare/warfare state.

Liberty means you have a right your life, your body, your privacy, and the fruit of your labor. Liberty means living your life the way you want to as long as you don’t hurt other people. It means setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms. It means aspiring towards a more free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem and the rejection of the initiation of force. It means profits that are honestly earned through voluntary exchange add value to the world while profits gained by violating the property rights of others through theft, pollution, or government bailouts and subsidies do not. And it means the rejection of wireless wiretaps, indefinite detention of US citizens and assassination of US citizens without due process. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state.

Ron Paul may not win the presidency, but that doesn't mean the quirky, didactic, old man can't have a profound effect on American society when it comes to government debt, fiat currencies, the Drug War, the Federal Reserve, endless overseas wars, civil liberties and the militarization of the US police force. Whether its outlawing the selling of raw milk, sugary drinks in school, or the LA city council voting to require all adult film actors to wear condoms, people are getting sick of an overbearing, bankrupt nanny state. We don’t have two parties in this country we have one big government party—
1)a Republican wing that likes war, corporatism, deficits, assaults on civil liberties like marriage and drugs, and an expanded police state,
2)and Democrats that like war, corporatism, deficits, statism and redistribution.

Twelve Reasons why I support that loony old goat Ron Paul:

1) Paul has worked to crack down and fully audit the Federal Reserve which is directly responsible for the U.S. debt, the perpetual deficits, and the advancement of the welfare/warfare state
2) Paul wants to actualy cut a $1 trillion dollars from the Federal budget unlike other GOP candidates who only want to trim baselines of expected spending increase for the next 20 years
3) Paul wants to reduce an out of control US Defense budget that exceeded $1 trillion in 2011 when you include "off budget" items and other categories of "defense" spending not covered in the Pentagon budget
4) Paul is against the NDAA and the right of the Federal government to indefinitely detain US citizens without due process and strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion
5) Paul is against SOPA, the so-called online piracy act but actually an Internet death penalty that allows the Attorney General to disappear websites
6) Paul voted against the Patriot Act including warrantless surveillance and forcing companies to turn over information on citizens' finances, communications and associations
7) Paul is against the Obama administration's use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review
8) Paul believes the 50 states should be laboratories for democracy. If a state wants to legalize drugs, prostitution or gay marraige, it should be up to the people of that state and not the Federal government
9) Paul is against the right of Obama or any president to assassinate US citizens without due process
10) Paul is against the militarization of US police forces and the record amount of no knock raids by SWAT on non violent suspects
11) Paul wants to decriminalize marijuana and to dial back the worst excesses of the failed, trillion dollar drug war.
12) Paul has consistently opposed free-trade deals that have led to massive layoffs and factory closings in the United States

This country is bankrupt and it's just as much the Republicans fault as it is the Democrats. The military budget has doubled since 2001. We spend more money on the military then the next 10 countries combined. And Europe and Asia laugh at us as they get a free ride on our military dime so they can spend money on free health care for their citizens We stupidly pay for their security and they all still hate us for it. After 4 trillion dollars blowing up mud huts with million dollar missiles you feel any safer? Is the Middle East in better condition after all that money? Read the papers. Iraq is falling into Iran's sphere and Afghanistan will collapse the minute we leave. Reagan said in his memoirs the biggest tragedy of his administration was getting militarily involved in Lebanon and the mess of Middle East politics. Too bad Conservatives listen to NeoCons now and not Reagan or Ron Paul.

Funny I dont understand the weird supporters for Romney/Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Bachmann. Economy stagnating, industrial base eroding, national debt swelling, and they all want to increase the defense budget and start another bankrupting war. Just weird...

Look I'd be frustrated too if I was a Progressive neocon and knew Ron Paul of the Russell Kirk, WF Buckley, Goldwater wing of Conservative Party might be heading into the Republican convention with the second most delegates.

Spin neocons spin! You got first place with warmonger Ken doll Romney but second and third goes to anti-neocons. Are you a little worried that your big flip flopping candidate suddenly turns into a peace candidate when he sees the changing mood of the US public?

Man, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. I lay out several charges against Rick Santorum and not one is contested. Instead for some reason I'm called an anti-semite. Gee, isnt Rick Catholic? I didnt realize Bush and Cheney, the architects of the US debacle in the Middle East were Jewish either. For a Conservative site there sure are a lot of Progressives in the comments area since Progressives instinctively go to the race card when their views are challenged.

I could talk about the US, Mossadeq and Operation Ajax, or Obama the GOP and the NDAA, but based on the intelligence level of the comments here it'd be like challenging banjo boy in Deliverance to a spelling contest. Hey, I'd be frustrated too if my Woodrow Wilson dreams of endless Progressive wars for Democracy and the encroaching US police state were being exposed to more and more Americans every day as a cancer on this country.

The attacks on 9/11 supposedly cost less than $500,000. So for the $4 TRILLION you supported in fighting that terrorist act, what have you got to show for it? Ten years of preemptive wars, thousands dead and trillions borrowed from the Chinese and no end in sight. Afghanistan will fall apart the second US troops leave and Iraq is already falling into Iran's sphere. And how'd that $40 billion to propping up Mubarrek work out? How's Libya working out? Oh, and another generation of Muslims will hate us. (BTW there's 1.232 billion of them so good look killing them all). I tend to listen to people like Ronald Reagan who complained in his memoirs about the irrationality of Middle East politics and specifically on the 1982 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon: "If that policy had changed to more of a neutral position those 241 Marines would be alive today."

Hey, it was all worth it. We haven't lost much except for being groped at airports, right? Oh yeah, and the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on US citizens and monitor their activities, but so what. Oh, and the US government can now assassinate US citizens without due process, but they probably deserve it. Oh, and the military can now carry out detention of US citizens contrary to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. So who needs the Fourth Amendment granting liberty from unreasonable seizures or the Sixth guaranteeing every U.S. citizen a trial in front of a jury, right?

And BTW, Ronulans follow the Russell Kirk, WF Buckley, Goldwater wing of Conservative Party not the Progressive Neocon wing.

Joel maybe as a conservative you could maintain your integrity by exposing the shameless homophobia, the shameless earmarking, the shameless big government, the shameless corruption, the shameless cashing in as an insider, and the shameless warmongering of Rick Santorum. Santorum's foreign policy consists of "We must maintain these pre-emptive, endless, bankrupting wars with Muslim countries or Muslims will set off nukes in US and state legislatures will proclaim Shariah law." Santorum’s politics are the essence of Bushism and we all know how that worked out. As long as people aren't swayed by reason and instead manipulated by emotion we will keep electing politicians like Bush, Obama, and Rick Santorum.