You may notice that Paul only has, what, 2 million supporters? You think you can win a presidency with that? The Republicans or the Democrats are both parties of coalition. So is the "Ron Paul" movement: libertarians, independents, establishment Republican defectors, and libertarian-Republicans. This coalition is no where near large enough to win a presidency. Do they need "Ron Paul" people? No. They need the coalition we've all formed.
I was going on what I heard Ron say on various interviews. As a general rule you don't get on the stage if you support someone else for president.
1 Million that identify republican, preferred Ron Paul over other candidates, AND voted in the primary. (If they knew who he was in spite of the media tricks)
+2 Million. This is the estimated number of suspected non-republican supporters who did not, could not, or refused to vote in a republican primary who would have voted for Paul in the general if given the opportunity. For example by the time Michigan's turn came, The media was already declaring Romney the victor. How many stayed home?
OR how about...
+Libertarians... (300,000 - 400,000 that (bother to) reliably vote every 4 years that didn't likely vote in the republican primary.
+20,000,0000 Independents...(Estimates ranged from 25-40% support among independents, that preferred Paul over other candidates) This number would go as high as 20,000,000. 30%+ of the electorate identifies as Independent. MOST of the people don't vote in primaries because of the lack of party affiliation or identity.
+Other Republicans. If given the opportunity to vote for Ron Paul over Obama, Republicans voted for Paul reliably. This is the group that preferred Romney, who lost because of the lack of support among Independents
+Democrats... many "Democrats" and "Independents who lean Democrat" Don't even know who Ron Paul is...But when they Do, they tend to like him.
+World... Easily the most popular candidate internationally with the exception of the president himself.
Easily the hardest group to work with, is the republicans themselves. We are trying to fix what's broken. We aren't all that worried about democrats, They've never heard of a pro-liberty, peace, anti-cronyist Republican, as far many of them know, one doesn't exist. Who knows how they would react to a Ron Paul candidacy if given the opportunity. What we do know, is that they didn't even give Romney a second glance. That's obvious. The republican party did everything it could to abandon growing the party base, and rejected the one candidate that actually did.
The point isn't that we will win a presidency with these numbers.
The point is that you can't win one without us. This outcome was predicted. We even knew why. And like Ron said...they are scratching their heads. 2 Million was the difference in this election. BUT, 12 Million didn't even bother to show up that did 4 years ago. And then a record number voted for Johnson.
By my estimate, that's 14+ million who now know too much to continue to vote for that same crap that has us in this mess and has us shut out from the conversation. Most of them, interestingly came from the group that 4 years ago, vote for Obama. Isn't that interesting. That, I think, is the safest estimate. Still not enough to win, but FAR more than enough to decide an election.
