Gee, maybe Ron Paul has not been so dumb about not putting all his eggs in the Iowa basket.
If he wins or does well it will be treated as irrelevant. If he does poorly, it will be held up to show that he is indeed fringe.
The same goes for the online polls - In every one that Ron Paul has dominated, it was written off to spammers - but if they had one online poll that Ron Paul got clobbered in, that would be the one that was determined to be "legit" and they would point out that THIS poll had code to guard against multiple voting (yeah they all did, but they would imply otherwise).
Don't put ALL you hopes on Iowa, yes keep working for success there, but don't be devastated whatever happens.
As far as Ron Paul running third party. He NEVER said he WOULD NOT do it, he was asked about it and he said "No, that is certainly not sometihing we have considered." And he was asked if he would run independent, not third party.
That may seem like splitting hairs, and maybe he really has no intention of continuing on if he doesn't get the nomination. But you have got to realize that when he was asked that question if he had said "Yes, if I don't get the nomination I will make an independent run or third party run" at that point his run as a GOP nominee would be OVER. I definitely felt that his answer was much more of a "that is not something that is on our radar yet, and haven't given it any thought" more than a "No I would not do it".
