I don’t think he’ll consider running as an independent if he doesn’t get the nomination. He’s already said, repeatedly, he just doesn’t want to go through the hassles of fighting to get on the ballot in every state, gaining credibility with voters, etc. for zero chance of victory…and who could blame him? I could have seen him running as a Libertarian if they’d worked out some sort of a deal before now, since they are on the ballots and have some name recognition, but the way the LP handled it indicated they hadn’t given it any thought and the whole thing was just a complete mess that I think would fatally undermine the party’s credibility even with Paul on the ticket (not that they had a lot to begin with).

Basically, when Ron Paul says he has no intention of running as an independent, I believe him. He either wins the GOP nomination or he’s done.

Another thing that will affect his decision to run third party will be who the Republican and Democratic nominees are. In order for him to do well, he needs to be a lot different that the candidates. His ideal run would be against Hillary and Guiliani. They are so despised and represent everything bad about politics, that Paul would probably make a good run against them. Paul would represent real change and that’s what people are looking for. However, if the nominees are Obama and Huckabee, he’d have a harder time. Although the difference are significant, to the average American, the distinctions are not as black and white.

In my opinion, I think it would be better if he ran as an independent and not a libertarian. The problem with parties is that they come with labels and generalizations. People are fed up with the party system in general. Nobody takes libertarians, green party, etc… seriously. Unfortunate, but true. He’s less likely to get noticed if he runs under that party, because people don’t believe that any of those parties can win. However, people do have a thing for Independents. The classification Independent doesn’t come with a label, other than that of “change”. Something different from politics as usual. In doing so, Paul may run the risk of alienating some Libertarians, but oh well. He’ll attract far more disenchanted Republicans and Democrats than he will aliente Libertarians. Not to mention, Libertarians will still by in large vote for him over their own party because he has a legitimate shot at defeating the two party system.

Thanks for the heads up. Link fixed.

It does surprise me that Bob Barr was one of the people doing this, though. I thought he was a lot sharper than that.

By the way, your first link is broken, Doug, it just goes to the Liberty Papers log-in.

An excellent point.

As someone over at Hit&Run who posted on this issue this morning put it — if I was one of the three guys actually running for the LP nomination, I wouldn’t exactly be happy with the fact that the Party basically begged someone to cross party lines to get the nomination.

Bad move by the LP if they were serious about trying to help the cause of libertarianism.

Either the Green Party has abandoned it’s socialistic, pro-big government philosophy, or Ron Paul has abandoned his philosophy.

Imagine what could happen if the Green Party, etc, also endorsed Paul….

Considering the current makeup of the GOP, thats an even nuttier idea than accepting the LP nomination.