I hate to be a nay-sayer here but, the fact of the matter is that, given today's political climate, I seriously doubt that any third party candidate can win a national election. The ballot access laws vary from state to state and it's very hard for a third party to gain access to all fifty states (plus it's very expensive). Please also keep in mind that the debates (for the general election) typically exclude the third party candidates so the general public never even hears about them. They did a third-party debate at Cornell during the 2004 elections that featured all the third party candidates that was simply AWESOME and, had some of them been allowed into the mainstream debates, the '04 elections would have probably turned our quite differently. Of couse, the PTB can't have that and this is why, I believe, Dr. Paul realized that his best (and maybe only real chance) was to run on the Republican ticket -simply for the exposure that is denied to third-party candidates.