The poll graph looks like a cross-section of the ocean during a violent storm, with the front-runners roiling and spuming and spewing, while Ron Paul cruises along in calmer waters just below like some kind of great white shark. He's not always been in the #2 spot, but he's always been just behind the pack of mud-wrestlers. And what if those guys destroy each other?

Ron Paul's the guy who elicits a fascinating universal reaction: "You know, I actually agree with about 80% of what the guy says, but that other 20% is batshit crazy!".

Which means that he's a candidate of whom a large majority 80% approve. In this political environment, doesn't that make Paul the consensus choice?

Yet in reality he's being studiously ignored and downplayed by all the media and all the pundits (except Jon Stewart, who echoes my complaint) and the Republican Party bosses. That's beginning to irritate the hell out of me. The 80% that Paul says that everybody likes may well be the thing that we need to be talking about, and so his treatment is looking like a travesty of democracy.

Not to mention simply rude. Christ, did you see David Gregory on Beat the Press grilling Ron Paul about Mitt Romney's chances as front-runner? Now that is insulting.

Ron Paul has an "electability" problem, eh? Well, ya know, that's a problem of belief, and has a simple cure: get people to believe. The moment Ron Paul rises above the line into front-runner status, even once, it'll be a tipping point and suddenly everybody will "realize" just how electable Ron Paul really is.

Who'd a thunkit?