2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Obama Campus Fervor Losing to Apathy as Students Sour on 2012 [View all]GOPrefugee
(18 posts)...Donald Trump, not Ron Paul, is the kind of Perot torpedo most likely to sink him. Romney and Paul have been tight for years, and Santorum has even accused the two of cooperating against him. As an avid Diplomacy player, I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't. XD
Paul has his own ideological baggage, namely the very views on fiscal (monetary, really) "conservatism" (reactionary-ism, really) that my cohort (border of Gen-X and Gen-Y, recently pushed onto the fence from the right) finds so attractive. Rather than merely vomit up thirty years' of Kool-Aid (that's "vomit up" in the "un-swallow" sense rather than the "regurgitate" sense), though, he's advocating a return to the Nineteenth Century. He's pushing the question back before most of the available evidence, and hoping for faith in the free market to carry him.
But of course, he's only doing that because he doesn't want to ask anyone to trust government. Consistent with that, along with his highly questionable economic policy comes the most sensible set of social policy positions the GOP has produced in decades. This is where his appeal to younger Republicans lies: they KNOW he's right on this, but they're still free-market absolutists. I've actually taken to referring to Paul supporters as the Objectivist wing of the Republican Party.
The best thing that I can say about Ron Paul is that his heart is in the right place. If I were as ideological as I used to be, I'd probably be openly supporting him for President. As it stands, though, I think that his greatest potential is in leading a reform of the GOP, not so much the whole country.