"Paul claimed a ticket out of Iowa, vowing to continue his fight, even as his GOP rivals have dismissed him as a fringe candidate and as party leaders have flatly declared him unelectable.
Iowa voters thought otherwise, taking to Paul’s strident antiwar and small-government message in enough numbers to lift him into a finish just a few percentage points behind Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Evangelicals, home-schoolers, young people, moderates, libertarians and disaffected Democrats formed an unlikely coalition that led to Paul’s strong showing, and at his Tuesday evening rally he predicted Iowa would be a launching pad to bigger things.
“We have tremendous opportunity to continue this momentum, it won’t be long that there’s going to be an election up in New Hampshire, and believe me, this momentum is going to continue and this movement is going to continue and we are going to keep scoring,” Paul said to his supporters. “So tonight, we have come out of an election where there were essentially three winners, three top vote-getters and we will go on, we will raise the money, I have no doubt about the volunteers.”" Washpost
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In 2008 Paul took 10% of the vote in the Republican caucuses in Iowa. Last night he took 21%. That fact is being deliberately ignored in the MSM. Romney had the same percentage of the vote yesterday that he did in 2008. Who was the winner? Santorum? I doubt that Santorum will find a great deal of support outside of areas of elevated religiosity and Israelism. IMO Paul is too old to be president. I am nearly as old. His lack of long term political intent led him to the idiocy of the" oh so useful" newsletters. He is wise to not believe that he will be president.
Nevertheless, there is something in his message that has a powerful appeal to many. This is a message that carries the meaning that much of the federal government centered establishment exists to serve its own interests. Paul's message threatens the entire population of what Mr. Jefferson would have called "centralizers." This includes the mass of media persons, federal civil servants below the politically appointed level, most senior military and naval offciers and the professoriat in the satellite fields of international relations and political "science."
IMO what you are seeing in the highly disciplined mass of young people who support Paul is the commencement of a powerful movement that will result in a political party.
In 1856 the Republican Party ran its first presidential candidate. Paul should run as a representative of a new party. pl
