Things were settling down to a two-man fight when the anchors finally let Ron Paul speak. Interestingly, they used him to attack Perry from the Right. It was probably a cynical move (“Let’s unleash the old crazy guy on that smug SOB,” said someone in the control room). But in the long run it’ll do Paul a lot of good. It let him show off his conservative economic credentials against a field of career politicians. Perry talks like a Tea Party man, but he’s secretly a big spender and used to be a centrist Democrat. Ron Paul exposed that deftly and moved on to make his unique pitch as a libertarian who won’t yield on anything. The thing I love most about Dr Paul is how many wild ideas he fits into a thirty second answer. Last night we got abolish airport security, shut down disaster relief and end the war on drugs. As the field rearranges itself following the psychic shock of Perry entering the race, this kind of unhinged consistency sets Paul apart as the real candidate of the Right. Perry and Romney will get torn apart by their records. Ron Paul’s running on rhetoric, and it sounds mighty fine so far.
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