At this point I'm a Ron Paul supporter. I believe that he does have a chance to win the election and I think he could do a lot to help bring this country back to it's more conservative roots.

I'm not here to spam your forum and I don't get nasty. I hope to test my feelings about Paul's platform with your help, and maybe make a few friends at the same time.

RG

Hi Regular Guy,

Unfortunately, spammers have been our dominent experience with Ron Paul supporters on this site.  There is much about Ron Paul to like (as example his fiscal conservatism), but his stance on the war on terror prevents him from being a serious contender in the Republican primaries.

Sure, he's been effective in raising funds, but he is not even a blip on the radar when looking at the major polls that rank where each Republican candidate stands.

True dittohead, but the polls can be misleading. If Paul were nominated he would draw support away from the Dem candidate. No other GOP candidate would do that effectively. He also has the advantage of drawing support from a large number of young, first time voters, and also from the 50% of voters that traditionaly don't participate. I'm convinced that he would easily defeat the Dems if nominated.

His biggest challenge is getting the GOP nomination. When you consider that a few months ago he was virtually unknown, his support among traditional GOP voters is impressive. In this quarter he has raised over $10 million, and his campaign spent very little to get it. I believe that many previously Democratic voters are changing their registrations to Republican so that they can vote for Paul in the primaries. Many states don't even require you to formally change affiliations. I live in Georgia and to vote in the primary you just walk up to a person and tell them which party you want to participate in. I expect to see a lot of new faces in the GOP line this year.

Paul's anti war position gives him another advantage for the GOP nomination this year. He is the only candidate in the field with that platform. I know that the GOP is mostly pro war, but polls still indicate that the war does not have good popular support. Many Republicans might get the idea that they would be wise to pit an anti war candidate against the Democrats. Paul's position is not just to pull out of Iraq, he wants to bring home virtually all of the troops scattered around the globe and create a strong defense on our own soil. He points out that we are spending billions to build bases overseas, while we close bases here at home. Americans these days might like the idea of bringing our soldiers home to build a strong homeland defense, and better control of our borders. We have neglected our veterans too much and I believe that would change dramatically under a Paul administration.

You might find this poll interesting:

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1391

The telephone survey, known as a “blind bio” poll because likely voters are given details of the candidates’ resumes without their names attached, shows Giuliani wins 34% support, compared to 22% each for Thompson and Romney. Ron Paul, who has surged recently in polls and has a significant online following, came in last with 13% support, while 9% said they were undecided on the question.

That was the result from GOP voters only, when you expand the results to include all voters the result changes dramatically:

The blind bio question was also posed to a larger pool of 1,009 likely voters nationwide, including Democrats and independents, and Paul was the big winner among that universe of voters, winning 33%, compared to 19% for Giuliani, 15% for Romney, and 13% for Thompson.