Was it really two months ago that I wrote these words?
As he was in 2008, Ron Paul appears in it for the long haul. The candidate has benefited from smaller donations and one-day “money bombs,” and now leads one of the most funded campaigns in the race...A second place showing in New Hampshire also positions him as the strongest of the Romney alternatives.
Ron Paul still seems in it for the long haul, but more as a barnacle than a serious candidate. After 29 contests, Paul has only 51 delegates, fewer than 1/10 of those held by frontrunner Romney, and not even within striking distance of third-place Newt Gingrich, a zombie of a candidate. Gingrich can at least put a couple of states in his win column: Paul has not finished first in a single primary or caucus.
Paul was an out-of-nowhere sensation in 2008. He entered the 2012 GOP primary with significant momentum, having kept his strange Ron Paul Revolution movement alive while the tea party, with ideas that were close cousins to his own (complete with the latent racism), looked to add to his appeal and his vote totals. With a surging political movement, an established political ground operation, and millions of dollars via money bombs behind him, Paul was primed to be a serious contender in 2012, at least enough so as to massively inconvenience the major candidates.
Instead, Paul has run an expensive and ineffectual campaign. Before the Paul fans attack the comments section (please do, and register!) with bromides about how the Paul is the only ideologically consistent candidate, and the media hasn't covered him because we're all bought off, and so on, consider this fact: Paul is the second highest funded candidate in the GOP race, with $34 million, and yet despite his message of fiscal uber-responsibility, he is running the least efficient campaign. Paul has paid $650,000 per delegates, more than five times higher than any other candidate (Santorum is the scrappiest, paying about $50 grand per delegate, while Romney spends significantly more money, but has almost 600 delegates to show for it.)
This is all despite a grassroots-flavored organization. After failing to take either Iowa or New Hampshire, Paul's campaign switched to a caucus-heavy strategy, hoping to quietly rack up delegates in an echo of Obama's hugely successful 2008 campaign. But the delegates never came. Paul's most marquee showing, the second-place New Hampshire finish referenced above, netted him only three delegates, closer in total to Jon Huntsman's 1 than Mitt Romneys 8.
Nor can Paul's poor showing be blamed on financial mismanagement or amateur campaigning. Paul's ads, especially this brutal spot against Newt Gingrich, were slick and effective productions, the work of a confident and established campaign, not a stingy one.
The real explanation is that Paul has hit the ceiling of appeal his libertarian message holds. (The waning influence of the tea party hasn't helped.) While it's no surprise that Paul's ideas--including defunding numerous government agencies, allowing businesses to refuse minorities, and letting a sick man without health insurance die--haven't converted a large audience, it is surprising that $34 million hasn't found the audience for them. In the midst of a primary in which one cranky man, Sheldon Adelson, can single-handedly keep another cranky man in the running, effectively changing the race, the fact that Paul's millions of dollars haven't made so much as a dent is exceptional.
Meanwhile, as we enter the fall election the tenor of the debate is set to shift to income inequality, with a focus on fiscal stimulus rather than fiscal restraint, which means Paul may have done all of this without even making an ideological mark on the greater discourse. If Paul spent $34 million taking his message to ever corner of the union only to watch on the sidelines as Obama rides a message of federal stimulus to a second term, what, if anything, will he feel he has accomplished?
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Related: Mitt Romney Winning The Fundraising Primary Over His Republican Rivals
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