Ron Paul vs. Mitt Romney

The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier writes:

 

Will Ron Paul be Mitt Romney’s last rival standing? We ask that question because if you sort through the Nevada caucus results, look at this week’s GOP events, add in a few financial disclosure forms, and shake, you can produce a scenario where Representative Paul outlasts Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. That would make the Texas libertarian the only non-Romney to run all the way to the Tampa Republican convention in August.

 

Yes, we know Paul actually placed third in Nevada’s Saturday vote. He’d hoped to do better, placement-wise. He ended up with 19 percent of the vote. Ex-Speaker Gingrich got 21 percent. Mr. Romney reached the 50 percent threshold.

 

But look at it this way: That 18 percent is four percentage points higher than Paul’s 2008 Nevada vote. It’s also higher than prevote polls had predicted: A Las Vegas Review-Journal survey in late Januaryhad him at only 9.2 percent of the vote, for example.

 

Plus, as The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake points out Monday morning, Nevada entrance polls showed something surprising: Paul won among voters who said that the most important quality in a candidate is that they are “a true conservative.”

 

Paul got 42 percent of that vote, versus 30 percent for Gingrich and 24 percent for Mr. Santorum.

 

As Mr. Blake notes, Nevada leans libertarian, and that may have been a factor in this result. But Gingrich and Santorum are competing to be the conservative alternative to Romney, aren’t they?

 

“This is really a must-have demographic for Gingrich and Santorum, and the fact that neither of them tapped it is bad news for their campaigns and their cases for pressing forward,” writes Blake…

Source: Paulitical Ticker with Jack Hunter

Sen. DeMint: “I’d like to see a Republican Party that embraces libertarian ideas.”

Writes Peter Grier at the Christian Science Monitor:

 

Ron Paul did pretty well in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday. He placed second, slightly outperforming pre-election polls, and – perhaps more importantly – he tripled the number of votes he got in the Granite State when he ran for president in 2008. More and more, many in the GOP are realizing that this time around Ron Paul is a significant phenomenon that’s not going to fade away once the early primaries are over.

 

They’re also realizing that it’s counterproductive to dismiss the Texas libertarian’s followers as cranks, college students in favor of drug legalization, or disaffected liberals. The 2012 general election is likely to be close, and the GOP will need all the voters it can get.

 

Thus some in the GOP are beginning to make conciliatory noises about the Paulites. Tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina on Wednesday said that the Republican presidential candidates need to listen to Ron Paul and might do well to adopt some of his ideas, particularly on economics.

 

“One of the things that’s hurt the so-called conservative alternative [candidates] is saying negative things about Ron Paul,” said Senator DeMint on conservative Laura Ingraham’s radio show. “I’d like to see a Republican Party that embraces a lot of the libertarian ideas.”

 

Source: The Paulitical Ticker with Jack Hunter