Come off it already. The official campaign did what campaigns do. The media conspired to alternately ignore Paul and laugh at him. We and they have made a considerable splash in the face of that. I'm old enough to have seen many Libertarian Party runs and various other third party candidacies from Perot to Nader, and to put it simply, Paul was painted from the start in the same way that third party candidates are painted.
Have you ever seen the episode from The Simpsons from back in '96 where they parodied the Clinton/Dole race? Both were replaced by evil aliens in disguise. When the truth came out, someone in the crowd yelled, "I'm voting for Ross Perot" and the crowd perked up. Then one of the evil aliens said, "Go ahead. Throw your vote away," and laughed maniacally. Then the crowd's faces all fell again and a collective groan was heard. At the end, Homer says to Marge, "Don't blame me, I voted for [the other alien]."
This is nothing new. This is why Dr. Paul doesn't seem thrilled by a third party run. Maybe the campaign hq didn't run the most brilliant race in history, but it was far from the worst.
Furthermore, a brokered convention does hold hope for our cause yet. Chill out. Maybe we couldn't save America against its will, but we may turn out to be the spark that ignites the convention. In any case, we're sure to be a force for evolution.
