Try to Make Me Go Third Party, I Won't Go, Go, Go

"Google Ron Paul" has been appearing everywhere - including on an overpass above the local interstate.

Somebody probably thinks it's a clever marketing ploy. But it seems to me one of those phrases that comes bundled with it's own inevitable irony - sort of like that "Rehab" song by train-wreck chanteuse Amy Winehouse. It's a catchy, non-self-aware epitaph. One day we will read a sad headline about the singer; and likewise, in the years ahead, only Wikipedia will remember Mr. Paul's run for the White House.

Was his name Ross Paul? No ... Google it. Ron Paul, right.

Every election cycle seems to come around with several "daydream" political candidates. They cannot conceivably be elected, but they provide for some entertaining "what if" possibilities. Usually these involve some kind of highly speculative third party scenario - and now the whispering has begun in the case of Mr. Paul.

But an American third party never seems to congeal - involving as it does a hodge podge of pseudo-socialists, Libertarians and renegade would-be populists from all political backgrounds, united only by an disgust with for both parties. Everyone nods their head vigorously over the need for alternatives, but at the end of the day there are huge disagreements about the role and size of government, and our place in (and approach to) the community of nations, including belligerent powers. It's all fun and games until you hash through the issues.

Ron Paul is nevertheless intriguing.