Ron Paul's strong second place finish in last night's New Hampshire primary is earning him plaudits from some of the same mainstream political voices who have appeared skeptical about his candidacy for much of this political cycle.
But the fact that he is earning strong support by a coterie of "constitutionalists," liberals, college students and the like begs the question: How serious he is about making a point, vs. actually winning the GOP nomination for president?
The Ron Paul campaign sent out an e-mail message late Monday night hailing a new national poll that shows the Texas Congressman in a statistical dead heat against President Obama in a head-to-head contest (Obama leads Paul in the survey 46-45 percent).
Paul's National Campaign Director, Jesse Benton, seized on the CBS News survey (which shows that only Mitt Romney actually leads the president among the GOP candidates currently in a presumptive match-up, 47 to 45 percent), focusing on independents.
“We’ve called this contest a two-man race between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, and this poll is further proof of that. It also demonstrates Ron Paul’s support among independents, an important voting segment within which our candidate is strong."
But how invested is Paul in his own candidacy, vs. having a platform to deliver his message at the RNC this summer about ending the Fed and getting out of foreign countries?
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2012.