Ron's views on abortion and leaving marriage/drugs to states probably keep him from pure libertarianism, but he is all for free market capitalism so far right on econ definitely makes sense.
Yet he also believes that states are permitted under the Constitution to regulate the economy within their own borders. Some distinctions need to be drawn, here; within his capacity in office, Ron Paul says he would leave this thing or that thing to the states. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a fundamental opinion about the issue itself in the abstract, only that he wouldn't deal with it in a scenario wherein he has sworn an oath to the Constitution and taken a federal office under said oath. For example, from various statements he has made over the years, I think it is pretty clear he personally believes that:
-Marriage should not be licensed or controlled in any way by the State
-Recreational drugs should be legal for adults
-Education should be privatized
However, his position on these issues
in the context of his being a candidate for a federal office is that:
-Marriage issues should be left to the states
-Recreational drug issues should be left to the states
-Educational issues should be left to the states
This does not mean, mind you, that he is changing or disguising his beliefs; he is simply faithfully following his oath to support and defend the Constitution, which does not give him license to nationalize his own (pure libertarian) views on various issues. This does, of course, complicate the placement of Ron Paul on a "scale" such as the one we are dealing with here, for we must first decide whether we are talking about the entity "Ron-Paul's-views-in-the-universal-abstract" (eg. no laws governing marriage, recreational drugs legal, etc.) or "Ron-Paul's-positions-for-purposes-of-a-term-in-federal-office" (marriage
left to the states, recreational drugs
left to the states, etc.). If the former, Ron Paul belongs near the bottom right corner of our graph; if the latter, he belongs significantly higher.
