Ron Paul’s campaign has started running radio ads, and intriguingly the first ad focuses on popular, “mainstream” themes.  The ad script says:

Anncr: Who is Ron Paul, the candidate for President? He served his country as a flight surgeon after the Cuban Missile crisis.

As a young doctor, Ron Paul worked nights in the emergency room of an inner city hospital, taking care of everyone, whether they could pay or not.

As an OB-GYN, he has delivered over 4000 babies. As a doctor, Ron Paul knows our health care system needs real change— where patients and doctors are in charge, not big corporations or government bureaucrats.

As a Congressman— for over twenty years, Ron Paul knows our Constitution is there to protect our freedom and limit government in our lives.

Ron Paul has refused his congressional pension. He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch. He has never voted for a tax increase or an unbalanced budget. People who know him call him the taxpayers’ best friend.

To learn more about this remarkable man, go to RonPaul2008.com. That’s Ron Paul 2008.com
RP: I’m Ron Paul and I approve this message.

The ad has some nice populist flourishes.  It manages to tie in Rep. Paul’s medical career with health care and allude to his pro-life stance without dwelling on it and it pitches a constitutionalist, libertarian message without talking about the war.  It seems pretty intelligently crafted to me.  This ad makes me think that Paul is now really trying to expand his base of support.  The days of the symbolic protest campaign definitely seem to be over.