GOP's Paul to Crash Iowa Forum

[cal04]

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will add party crashing to his campaign tactics this weekend.

The Texas congressman, who has struggled to top 1 percent in national polls, wasn't invited to a forum of presidential candidates Saturday in Des Moines. The gathering is sponsored by the Iowa Christian Alliance and the watchdog group Iowans for Tax Relief.

Instead of grumbling, Paul's campaign decided to hold its own party - in the same hall as the forum. They're calling it a celebration of life and liberty.

Campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said it has been frustrating to be excluded, especially since Paul has consistently opposed abortion and is known nationally for his advocacy of lowering taxes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070627/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail_24

[tridim]

1. How come he always wins post-debate polls if he's only at 1% nationally?

Something's fishy.

[SergeyDovlatov]

2. 99% of people in the real world have no idea who he is. n/t

[Roy]

3. may have something to with who conducts and/or pay for the polls

[Telly Savalas]

5. Perhaps because almost nobody watches debates 20 months before the general election.

[silverback]

6. Several reasons...

Paul isn't your typical Republican, there's a fairly large base of support for him that's EXTREMELY excited about his campaign, because they don't feel like they've had any representation..well ever.

The online polls never get more than a couple hundred thousand votes, usually a lot less. Paul has more dedicated activists than it takes to win any online poll. What those polls measure is the strength of activist support, not general popularity.

In the "scientific" polls there are several things going on that I think lead to under-reporting of Pauls support, like the fact that those polls are often of "likely republican primary voters" meaning people who bothered to show up and vote for Bush in the 2004 primary. That isn't where you find most of Pauls support.

He's been excluded from many polls too, and there's often a 10-30% vote for "other" with everyone but Paul listed, even Thompson.

The GOP mouthpieces on FOX and elsewhere don't want Paul to be successful, they do everything they can to discredit him because he's quite formidable as a critic of neoconservatism from a conservative perspective, so he's credible with the voters they need to dupe.

Still, his support is probably under 5% nationwide, but if the Iraq situation gets worse either objectively on the gound or from a political perspective before the primaries (he was against it from the beginning, from 1998 actually), or if the immigration bill passes which he has a very well thought out and likely popular position on, he could get the name recognition he needs to work his way up. His fundraising is going better than any other "2nd tier" candidate.

I think the GOP primary will end up being Thompson, Paul, and either Romney or Giuliani, or maybe both. Nobody else has the support to make it to super tuesday.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

4. Paul's insane

But the rest of the GOP candidates are even more insane.