Ron Paul: Why bother?

For the past couple of weeks now, Ron Paul's... shall we say, fervent supporters have been pestering me about how I should stop suggesting that he's a racist and how I should consider supporting his run for the presidency.

I wonder though: If Ron Paul is so adamant in his views, why in the world is he running as a Republican in the first place? For all I know, this could all be some intricate plot to turn me into a Republican. Or get me to cut some checks to them anyway. As if.

It's getting to that point now where a lot of people who obviously have no chance at all of winning their party's nomination, let alone being elected president, are beginning to pull out of the race.

I see yesterday, for example, Dennis Kucinich decided to end his bid. From what I understand, he was pretty much out of money, and he might have cause for concern about whether or not he can even be reelected to Congress at this point.

Damn.

I remember when he pulled out of the race back in '04, he threw his support to, I think, John Edwards, or maybe it was John Kerry. At any rate, it was one of these Democratic senators who had voted for the war and who didn't seem to stand for a whole lot, and so his supporters were left feeling like the dumbasses that they were.

This time around, I see he's not gonna bother endorsing anyone. Maybe it's because he has literally no supporters at all left at this point. He only managed to garner something like 0 or maybe 1% of the vote in all of the primaries he was in; and in Michigan, where he was one of the only Democrats who ran, he actually managed to lose to "uncommitted."

Similarly, you have to wonder how long Ron Paul is going to bother stringing the few nutjobs who are still supporting him along.

Granted Ron Paul hasn't been doing nearly as poorly in the Republican primaries as Dennis Kucinich has on the Democratic side. I believe he may have actually beaten Rudy Giuliani once or twice, not that that's much of a feat these days. And he managed to come in second or third in Nevada, where a lot of the other Republican candidates didn't bother campaigning as much, probably because they figured Mitt Romney had the Mormon vote out there on lock.

However, I think it's pretty obvious by now that there's no way in hell Ron Paul can win the Republican nomination. A case can be made that he's been doing even worse than Fred Thompson, who pulled out of the race the other day and is probably going to throw his support to John McCain - the difference being that Ron Paul is probably capable of raising enough money to ride this bad boy all the way into the convention if he wants to.

But why even bother?

It would seem to me that if Ron Paul was really firm in his convictions, he wouldn't even have been running as a Republican in the first place. Never mind any argument he might make about how his stance is more along the lines of a traditional conservative or whatever. His even associating himself with them at this point is a tacit endorsement of President Sieg Howdy's shenanigans.

Cynthia McKinney, who strikes me as a much more worthwhile independent candidate in this election (her being an insane beeyotch notwithstanding), was a Democrat and a six-term congressman (congresswoman?) from Georgia, who got run out of the House on some ol' bullshit a few years ago. If she wanted to, she could probably see about having her district gerrymandered just right, and maybe securing some financing from the bin Laden family, or whoever it is who funds her elections, but instead she just said fuck it. She ditched the Democratic party altogether and is running for president as a Green.

Will Ron Paul have the balls to ditch the Republican party and run as some sort of independent? My guess is that he won't, the reason being: If he was going to, why hasn't he already? He can't possibly think he still has a shot. He is an umpteen-term congressman from Texas though. If he was to pull some shit like that, I'm sure the repercussions would be severe. Would he be willing to take that kind of risk. I don't even think you could last as long as he has in Congress without knowing when to sit down and shut the fuck up.

I consulted Google, and I see he's said in interviews that he won't rule out a run as a third party candidate, assuming this whole running as a Republican thing doesn't work out. But you have to think that he was just saying that so that a fucking fierce sense of buyer's remorse wouldn't begin to set in amongst the legions of dumbasses who keep cutting him a check. Imagine how dumb they'd all feel if he said was just gonna continue to take these people's money and then quit like a little bitch and throw his support to some warmonger like John McCain.

My guess is that the majority of his supporters in this election, many of whom don't strike me as your typical Republicans, would much rather see him make a go of it as an independent rather than pull some shit like that. After all, it is their money that he's spending. (Er, it was.) My question to them is: Why continue to lend your money and support to this racist sack of shit when there's already candidates in this election who have shown they have the balls to go at the system from outside the system, where they might actually make some sort of a difference.