Democrashield.com

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

As I predicted, Ron Paul’s campaign is all but finished:

With the focus on the presidential horse race, one story that has been neglected is the surprising underperformance of Rep. Ron Paul in New Hampshire. This is not to diminish Paul’s very real accomplishments in his run for the Republican presidential nomination — he has raised more than $20 million and went from a barely noticed candidate on the fringe to a key player in early polling, and he won a considerable amount of media attention. But that makes it all the more surprising that he did not run stronger in New Hampshire.

Paul took 10 percent of the GOP vote in Iowa, better than most anticipated. That should have provided him with even more momentum going into New Hampshire, where many supporters and independent observers thought he would do significantly better than he was doing in polls, given his grassroots support and popularity among some independents and Democrats. Talk of Paul taking 15 or even 20 percent of the New Hampshire vote was not uncommon in the weeks leading up to the primary, and pundits began to assume he would finish third behind Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney.

In the end, however, Paul ran fifth in the state, taking just eight percent of the vote — about what he was polling — despite his assumed strength and New Hampshire’s libertarian leanings. He did nearly as well in Michigan, a very different state where he did not put in nearly as much effort. Paul got a victory of sorts last weekend in Nevada, where he ran second to Romney. But it was a very distant second, some 37 points behind Romney, and Paul beat out third-place McCain by less than 450 votes.

Even Paul never really thought he would be the Republican presidential nominee, and now that the focus of both the party and the media have shifted away from him, his role in the GOP race may be at an end.

[Emphasis Added]

Paul’s campaign was centered around a small–but devoted–core of followers organized primarily through the internet. They did everything they could online to promote their candidate–spamming internet polls, flooding various social sites like Digg and holding massive online fundraisers (where Paul’s small base of support donated huge amounts of money).

The purpose of this strategy was twofold–first, they wanted to build buzz about Ron Paul, getting him press attention and getting his message out there. Second, they wanted to make Paul’s support seem bigger than it really was–to make Paul seem like the leader of a movement, thus attracting even more support and attention. To some extent, it worked–Paul did get more media attention than he would have if he ran a more conventional campaign.

Unfortunately for Paul and his supporters, their strategy had one key flaw–you can’t spam real-life polls. Paul languished at the bottom of the polls, trailing front-runners and second-tier candidates alike. Even in the primaries, Paul had low support compared to other candidates, particularly if you consider his massive fundraising. In fact, Paul never got more than 14% in any contest; if you take idiosyncratic Nevada out of the mix, Paul never garnered even 10% of the vote in any other caucus or primary.

It seems that Paul’s brand of radical conservatism and quirky libertarianism–dressed up in platitudes about the Constitution and “saving our republic”–just didn’t play very well with Republican voters.

I give Paul credit for moving from bring a fringe candidate to being a long shot, but anyone who entertained the idea that Ron Paul would be the Republican nominee was deluding themselves. With the media and the voters now focused on the McCain-Romney-Huckabee slugfest, there is little oxygen left for the Congressman from Texas.

Where does he go from here? Well–like Dennis Kucinich–Paul may have to drop out in order to defend his Congressional seat–Chris Peden is challenging Paul in the GOP primary, running as a conservative Republican loyal to the GOP:

I am a proven conservative Republican; the incumbent is a self-described Libertarian. I support winning the Global War on Terror and the War on Drugs; the incumbent does not. I think Islamo-Fascist terrorists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks; the incumbent thinks America’s Middle East policy’s were responsible for the attacks. I support fully funding NASA’s budget and the Vision for Space Exploration; the incumbent does not. I will support and vote for the Republican nominee for U.S. President in 2008, the incumbent will not (unless it’s him.)

The Texas primary is March 4th, so if Paul’s seat is threatened he would have to drop out well before then in order to focus his efforts on that. If Paul were to lose the primary, it could free him up to run for President either as an independent or a Libertarian; if he were to win, though, Paul could stay in the GOP race until the convention. While it’s doubtful he’ll pick up enough support to be a kingmaker or a spoiler, the GOP race is close enough for this to still be a distinct possibility.

For now, it’s clear that Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign is finished. He won’t pick up enough support between now and the convention to become the GOP nominee, which means he will either have to run as an independent (where he will inevitably lose) or drop out and defend his Congressional seat (which me might also lose).

Some people call Ron Paul a netroots candidate, but I don’t necessarily agree with that–true netroots candidates parlay the influx of attention, talent and money that come from online support into a strong grassroots campaign; Paul failed to do that, relying too much on the netroots and focusing too little on building a strong campaign apparatus of their own. In addition, Paul’s extremist ideology didn’t help him much, either.

If we can learn anything from Paul’s campaign, it’s that the internet can only do so much for a candidate; if you can’t build an effective ground game and voters can’t stomach your ideology, all the netroots support in the world won’t get you elected.

UPDATE: How can I declare that Ron Paul is finished? Well, as I said before, it doesn’t matter who comes in what place in what state–what matters is the delegate count.

According to CNN, Mitt Romney has 76 delegates, while John McCain has 38 and Mike Huckabee has 29; Ron Paul has only 6 delegates in his corner.

Real Clear Politics shows Romney with 59 delegates, McCain with 40, Huckabee with 36 and Paul with only 4 delegates.

Paul is severely lagging when it comes to winning delegates, coming well behind all three Republican frontrunners.  To ad insult to injury, if you take a look at some polls of upcoming primary states–such as Florida, Alabama, California, New York, Massachusetts and Georgia, just to name a few–Paul is trailing all three leading candidates in every single one.

In fact, if you look at some of those charts, Paul trails Fred Thompson–who dropped out of the race because he had no chance of becoming the GOP nominee.

Paul is nowhere near striking distance of first place, nor is he winning any state at this point.   I’m not sure exactly how a series of second–and third and fourth and fifth–place finishes will rocket Paul to the nomination.  In fact, it’s pretty clear that Paul’s hopes of being the GOP nominee are long, long gone.