I keep reading that Ron Paul is raising so much money that he doesn’t know what to do with it.
What makes the Paul phenomenon unique this cycle is that there is no clear front-runner who can simply ride out the rowdy rabble until the party’s top-down instincts silence them.
That is creating an intriguing choice for the 72-year-old doctor: Plow ahead on what still seems a quixotic quest for the White House or play spoiler by using his millions to help take out one of the front-runners.
Here is my advice. Ron Paul should have two main goals and then…a pipe dream.
His first goal should be to do surprisingly well in the early primaries. A second or third place finish will accomplish this and help his second goal: getting out his message. And then there is the pipe dream: actually winning the nomination.
Giuliani’s campaign is imploding at just the wrong time. Paul shouldn’t worry about the mayor. He wants the mayor to remain viable for as long as possible. Paul needs to work on Romney and McCain. Using his substantial advertising dollars to accuse McCain of being soft on immigration and Romney of being a closet liberal who switched positions out of convenience, can help put Mike Huckabee over the top in Iowa. A Romney loss in Iowa can lead to a Romney loss in New Hampshire. Ideally, Giuliani would win in the Granite State…temporarily bucking up a fatally flawed campaign. Keeping McCain down in Iowa is crucial to preventing him from getting a resurrecting victory in New Hampshire.
If Paul plays his cards right, he could see Thompson, McCain, and Romney all near mortally wounded after the first two contents. But without the big three, what’s left? Huckabee terrifies the country club Republicans and no one takes Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo seriously (and they don’t have any money).
If Huckabee comes out of the first two contests as the victor and clear frontrunner, who is going to stop him? Romney will have fallen on his face…McCain will be broke and rejected, and Giuliani will be wrapped in failure as well as scandal. But Ron Paul will still be standing with his wads of cash and his loyal supporters.
If this scenario were to actually unfold, I’d expect the Establishment to the only thing left to them…pour all their resources into John McCain and see if he can stop the other two.
Regardless, Ron Paul would emerge as a race-changing lion killer, with all the money and press coverage he needs to teach the nation about his ideas…both good and really bad.
If nothing else, it would be many generations before people forgot the name of Ron Paul. And just imagine how many delegates he could pile up to bring with him to Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention? Yee-haw.
