Richard makes many good points in his complaint about Ron Paul’s semi-endorsement of Barr, Baldwin, Nader and McKinney (Barr didn’t show for the press conference), but I would say that there was never any realistic chance that he was going to make his own third-party or independent run.  I say this with some confidence because Rep. Paul said that he wouldn’t do it months and months ago, and at the time I thought not running in the general election made the most sense.  If there were any chance that a Paul campaign in the general could win 20% of the vote (probably an overestimation), you can be sure that Paul would have been made the scapegoat for Republican defeat.  Instead of being held accountable for their failures, the GOP would have been able to explain away their defeat as an electoral fluke–never mind that a huge independent protest vote indicts the incumbent party for its failures–and nothing would change in terms of policy.  An independent Paul campaign in the general election would make his supporters feel better and would certainly affect the outcome of the election, but would mainly accomplish the election of Obama, for which Paul and his supporters would be held responsible.    

Besides, the prospects for third-party or independent candidates on the right have dimmed considerably in the last two weeks as the Palin nomination has worked its magic on anti-McCain conservatives.  Many of the undecided voters who were contemplating a protest vote in states across the South and the old Border states, where I thought a third-party candidate such as Barr might do unusually well, now seem to be swinging behind McCain in their Palinmania.  Perhaps they would have done so anyway even if Paul were in the race, but the reality is that Paul already missed whatever window of opportunity there was.  If there was a time to launch the independent campaign, it was six months ago, but the Paul campaign at that time was still pressing on to win delegates that, in the end, did not vote for Paul at the convention.  If this shows the futility of working within the GOP and trying to save it from itself, it also makes clear that the Revolution for this year had already concluded around February 5, when Paul made most of his largest gains in the caucus states in the Upper Plains and Northwest, or perhaps even earlier when he made the pledge not to run on a third-party ballot or as an independent.  Given Paul’s repeated pledge that he would not run, what I would have liked to see was an endorsement of either Barr or Baldwin or perhaps both together.  Instead, we have a muddled message that boils down to an “Anybody But The Major Parties” argument.   

Update: Barr held his own press conference.