I was discouraged to hear that Romney has a lot of support in Iowa. I Do Not Like that guy - smarm to the max.

Reading Ron Paul's issues, where does he think he'll get the money to "physically secure our borders"? I don't trust any candidate who promises to lower our taxes. The money's gotta come from somewhere.

I wish there were enough anti-torture Republicans out there to at least make the guy a viable contender, but I have my doubts. Small government conservatives seem to be a dying (or more accurately, migrating) breed, leaving the GOP largely in the hands of corporate welfare queens, militant xian fundamentalists, and authoritarian boot-lickers.

Ron Paul is a wacko. He's getting lots of interesting press right now, but that's just because he's saying things other people should have been saying all along.

I used to cover him a bit 10 years ago. The dude's loony.

(He was also the only member of Congress to vote against the memorial resolution honoring Charles M. Schultz, for whatever that's worth.)

Is it better to support Paul than Romney because the perception is that he's got less of a chance of winning, or because the perception is that his politics are somehow less objectionable or closer to Democratic ones or something?

pup, that's because he votes against everything, like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials, not because of any specific Peanuts beef, right?

Yeah, box, I think so. He takes "libertarian" to the extreme, so much so that he's no longer libertarian -- simply contrarian. IMO.

(He was also the only member of Congress to vote against the memorial resolution honoring Charles M. Schultz, for whatever that's worth.)

Well FUCK THAT GUY!

Not that I'd vote for a Republican ever, anyway. But I'm hoping that Ron Paul has a "Perot Effect" on the next election.

So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation...

I don't think I'm even going to send this wingnut a penny that I stuck in my ass on a hot day. Why the hell do people like this guy?

Oh, and:

Voted YES on zero-funding OSHA's Ergonomics Rules instead of $4.5B.

Fuck Ron Paul.

Voted NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research.

Fuck Ron Paul.

Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life.

Fuck Ron Paul.

Voted YES on restricting bankruptcy rules....Voted YES on Bankruptcy Overhaul requiring partial debt repayment.

Fuck Ron Paul and the credit agencies he's in the pocket of.

Supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer.

Fuck Ron Paul.

Voted YES on deploying SDI.

Fuck Ron Paul.

Voted YES on reporting illegal aliens who receive hospital treatment.

No, seriously, Ron Paul, I hope you get dysentery.

Fuck Ron Paul. Send Specklet a buck.

Any MeFite or MeChan who can get on the California Primary ballot as a Republican gets two bucks from me... in the form of a two-year-old two-dollar bill. Yes, that would even include dios, since then we'd all know his real name... bwahahaha.

Ron Paul is a, whatcha, conservationist? republican. When you ask "does the Constitution give the Federal Government the right to do this?" and the answer comes up "No", you have his answer.

It is far better that the Republican Party be represented by traditional Republican values, than to let it continue to be co-opted by the radicalist wingnuts who are currently gunning for office.

There might be something to be said for States Rights. There's nothing to be said for the ugliness that comes out of the other candidates' mouths.

I will vote Communist before I vote Democrat. In fact, I already have a number of times.

Hear that, Republicans? If you don't straighten out your shit, you're gonna have to deal with a real Leftist, not some Democrat mouthsore. tee-hee

We still have plenty of time for the Libertarians to find a real contender of their own, and I think 2008 will be the election that does it. Maybe the Republicans will find someone (Giuliani?) with the balls to buck the status quo, and on the other side, both Hillary and Obama are each proving more divisive with every passing week, so I don't hold much hope for anything but lukewarm milk from either party.

Truthfully, I thought Ron Paul seemed relatively 'centrist' on the US scale of (current) left-and-right.

If there were some way the Republicans could reclaim that ground, the Democrat party would have to move the left. And that'd be a real liberal left, not the slightly-less-right space they currently claim.

From other nations' perspectives, the US's political parties are two shades of the same colour. They're both right-wing parties, when compared to the parties you find in Europe, Canada, and South America.

Basically, the USA needs to recalibrate. :-)