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The Ron Paul Line

Longtime baseball fans know what the Mendoza line is (we won’t explain here) but what we mean here is that there may be a “Ron Paul line”: those candidates who couldn’t outraise Paul this quarter (he apparently took in approx. $2.4 million) ought to do some soul searching? So who couldn’t outraise Paul this quarter? […]

Longtime baseball fans know what the Mendoza line is (we won’t explain here) but what we mean here is that there may be a “Ron Paul line”: those candidates who couldn’t outraise Paul this quarter (he apparently took in approx. $2.4 million) ought to do some soul searching? So who couldn’t outraise Paul this quarter? Dodd, Biden? Huckabee? Every other GOPer not in the top four? ~Chuck Todd

In the event, Rep. Paul took in twice as much as Todd expected, which raises the bar even higher for the rest of the GOP field.  Hunter and Tancredo have vowed to stay in through the caucuses, but where do their supporters go when they drop out?  Ironically, Paul is alone among the others in being a reliable opponent of illegal immigration and trade deals such as NAFTA, which would make him the logical choice for these voters…if the war did not divide him so sharply from the majority of Republicans.

Update: Huckabee managed to bring in a whopping $1 million.  Ambinder ponders the significance:

There must be, within the Republican Party, a vein of anti-war libertarian sentiment. It is longer and deeper than many of us had suspected. The Paul movement is probably one part Buchanan bridage and one part fiscal hawk. It is clearly active in ways that most of us haven’t adequately understood? Paul may be in a position to be a giant killer now. Imagine if he finishes second or third in New Hampshire ….

Well, some thirty percent or so of Republicans have been opposed to the war for some time now, and there was always a small but hardy contingent of antiwar Republicans and conservatives.  It appears that they have begun mobilising.  Might it be enough to drag other candidates towards somewhat less crazy foreign policy views?

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