RP should never have been allowed to run on the GOP ticket, because he’s a libertarian. However, that said, the reason he’s done as well as he has is because he actually has ideas (and some of them overlap with conservative ideas).
The only other one who had ideas was Newt Gingrich, but people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter turned him into a laughing stock as soon as they could, because he represented a genuine threat to the GOP-e, while RP was obviously a flake candidate.
Also, I think if RP hadn’t run, many of his young supporters would have gone to Gingrich (possibly first to Perry, but Perry unfortunately was never able to fight back well enough when the attacks started). So in many ways, the person we have to thank for this miserable situation, in addtion to the GOP honchos who annointed Romney or were bought by him right out of the gate, is Ron Paul, who confused and diluted the Tea Party vote.
That said, if he can derail Romney, which I still think is possible, we will owe him a great debt of gratitude. Romney stinks almost as badly as Obama, and the “almost” is not enough to make me vote for Romney. I’ll vote down the ticket but not for Romney.
If we can get some good Senators in there who will halt the rubber stamping of Obama’s programs and actually fight for the separation of powers, that might be the best we can do, and it might really make a difference.
"RP Mitt Romney should never have been allowed to run on the GOP ticket, because he’s a libertarian democrat.
We should never allow a Democrat campaign donor to run in Republican primaries for President.
I’d like to ask RP supporters one thing. Why was he seen hanging around the very left-wing Code Pink bunch? That there, creeps me out about Ron Paul! Don’t we have enough problems with this bunch? They are Obama’s buddies!