Ron Paul: Is the switch in play?

Over at Third Party Watch, Steve Gordon notes a sudden change of line from the Ron Paul R3VOLution crowd: From urging Libertarians to re-register as Republicans and support Paul in the GOP primaries, to urging Paul to run for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination.

All this accompanied, of course, by the cry that the GOP bid was doomed from the start anyway, and by a return to the old LRC line on "red state fascism" and the fundamental unfitness of the Republican Party as a vehicle for liberty -- i.e. pretty much the same things I've been telling you for the last year. The folks in Auburn continue to chase after the changing line like American socialists circa 1936-41 trying to keep up with Uncle Joe's constantly shifting disposition.

As of early this year, I estimated the chance of Paul eventually throwing in for the LP's nomination at 95%, based on the refusal of the candidate and the official campaign to rule that out (an easy thing to do if you really have "no intention" of running third party). Recently I've doubted my own prediction, largely because the official campaign continues to talk like it's looking forward to a convention fight.

However, the people raising the LP flag aren't just your average bears -- they're people with real Paul connections and affiliations, posting at sites with juice. Eric Garris and Anthony Gregory are on it at LewRockwell.Com. Justin Raimondo floats the balloon at AntiWar.Com.

I'd say we're still holding at 95%, or maybe even rising a bit. This doesn't look like a random assortment of spontaneous pleas, it looks like an orchestrated part of what has been planned as a likely bait and switch from the start (bait: Run as a Republican, raise shitloads of money, hope you win but keep your options open; switch: When you lose, take the money and jump your small-fish-in-a-big-pond ass over to a smaller, more congenial pond -- "by popular demand").

Developing ... maybe.