1. IT WAS DEFINITELY INTENTIONAL. Did any anchor ever beg Huckabee or Thompson to quit in the face of successful fundraising? Did they overtly call any other non-front tier candidate someone who didn't have a chance? Was any other candidate left out of as many GOP polls throughout 2007 as Paul was?
2. Paul didn't emphasize libertarian positions on drugs and welfare, instead stressing the the war, the Fed, IRS, and civil liberties. There are positions he should have more fully embraced, such as 9/11 truth, that would have resonated with large segments of the public and diffused the "but they did it to us" emotionalism underlying the war on terror. Conservatively, about half the movement supports 9/11 truth (see below thread), so it was a mistake to spurn such a widespread concern of his supporters. It was his ambivalence, and later distancing from 9/11 that helped divide the revolution and deflate his support:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=122416&highlight=truth+poll
People such as yourself claim widespread support for your pet projects, such as 911 truth. Ron Paul doesn't support your view, period. He doesn't change his positions to match your wishes. He just doesn't believe your theories. You don't help the campaign by inserting your pet project into it. Most of us RP supporters and the general public, just don't buy it, regardless. That's why the media used the issue to ridicule us. You 911 truthers didn't care, you enjoyed making our candidate into a laughing stock for your project. Who cares about the campaign, I got my pet project on national TV. Great job!! helping Ron Paul go down in history without winning, and making RP and us look like a bunch of kooks.
Oh no, you're wrong, we could have done so much better, if we would have pushed this issue that we don't believe in? Any other issues, you wish the good doctor would have supported, that he doesn't believe in?
Yes, that's the problem kooky people can't even see, we were the deer in the headlights, they ran us right off the road by telling the public, we are kooky, just like you. So, when you lose, the kooks say, you see that, if we had just used our kooky issue, we would have done better or won. Yo'all kooks lack common sense. In a political campaign, you keep your kooky ideas to yourself. As a libertarian "kook" I didn't run around campaigning on getting rid of public schools, public roads and drivers licenses? Why, because the public isn't going to buy those ideas right now. If I or we or us libertarian "kooks" pushed these ideas, I would have hurt not helped the campaign. So, I kept silent the whole campaign about my "kooky" ideas. That is just plain common sense. After the campaign has passed, I don't complain, if we had just campaigned on my "kooky" ideas, we would have won. Why don't you 911 truthers, join the real world? Instead of imagining that everyone supports your "kooky" idea? But, that's why others, including myself call you truthers "kooky", because you don't even understand that not even most RP supporters, can buy your 911 truth ideas. Once you understand that your ideas are viewed as "kooky" you just shut up, at least that's what us libertarian kooks decided, but not you 911 kooks, you ran around the whole campaign trying to convert other RP supporters into fellow kooks and the public to your own pet cause.
Ron Paul set the important issues that he wanted to run on, leaving out the lesser "kooky" ideas. Abolishing the IRS and withdrawing the troops, isn't that radical enough for the public. What more did you want from the man? He was fighting against 200 years of statism, but 911 truth would have won the day. You can't get much more "kooky" than that.
