Ron Paul Should Run Third Party If He Loses The Nomination

Ron Paul's bid for the Republican nomination to be president has generated a lot of enthusiasm over the past few months. The amount of donations Paul's campaign has received has rivaled that of his opponents. Paul's campaign also can claim to have a lot more grassroots volunteers than any other campaign.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that Ron Paul has made some considerable progress in the polls recently, winning the nomination is still an uphill battle. He's still below 10% in Iowa and New Hampshire, and their primary elections are less than a month away.

Ron Paul's best shot at winning the White House would be for him to run on the Libertarian Party ticket. It is rare for a third party candidate to win, but Ron Paul has a lot of things going for him that other third party candidates didn't.

1. Money
Think back to '92. Ross Perot was able to get 19% of the popular vote. Why? Because he had a lot of money. So does Ron Paul. (And he'll get a lot more by tomorrow.)

2. Message
In my view, the reason why Perot didn't win the election was that he didn't have a strong message. He had broad stances on things which many people agreed with, but he didn't seem knowledgeable of the issues, nor did he have a consistent philosophy. Ron Paul has both. I would even say he is inspiring. How rare for a politician!

3. Disaffection
This is probably true for every election, but the people are sick of the two party system and having to choose the lesser of two evils. If the election comes down to Hillary v. Rudy, then the voter doesn't have a real choice. I mean, is there any real difference between the two?

4. Broad Appeal
Ron Paul gets almost as much support from liberals as he does from conservatives. His stances transcend the political spectrum. A lot of voters have libertarian views, but are frustrated because there are no viable candidates that can represent those views. Ron Paul would be such a candidate.

Regardless of all of this, Ron Paul himself needs to be convinced to run. So far, he's nearly ruled out a third party candidacy. Although if he does lose the nomination, I'm sure there will be a huge push to get him to run. I hope it's successful because he's the only chance this country has at being the land of the free again.