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I am interested to see this develop. Let's begin with the premise that Paul is unlikely to make a third party bid - his son's future might depend on him not doing it, and his son has come out very strongly saying it's a bad idea.
That said Paul will now be looking at Santorum to one side of him and Romney to the other.
Santorum is like an inversion of Paul - big spender and keen to be in on pretty much every overseas fracas he can get. Rampant interventionist nation builder and a social engineer at home.
Meanwhile, Romney has fiscal bonafides that have attracted major libertarian donors like Scott McNealy, the Silicon Valley icon and founder of Sun Microsystems who is adamantly in Romney's camp. Romney also advocates a more careful foreign policy than Santorum.
If Paul is looking at a lesser of two evils and knows that he can't win - and he does know that - he would be smart to train his fire on Santorum.
No guarantees that he will - he's got just enough crazy in him that he might open guns in both directions - but I think the factors cited above will tilt him toward the attack on Santorum - which will give him a platform to wage war against what he views as the very worst tendencies of the GOP.
In an interesting way it actually creates an opportunity for Paul to do more with this campaign than he ever envisioned and to do what he really wants - exposure for his priority issues, a platform for his argument and to mainline more of his own views into the Republican base. Santorum's presence gives him someone to train fire on while maintaining his campaign but without damaging the presumptive nominee.
Stay tuned - I'm gonna see if we can get Nadine Wimmer on this storyline.
That said Paul will now be looking at Santorum to one side of him and Romney to the other.
Santorum is like an inversion of Paul - big spender and keen to be in on pretty much every overseas fracas he can get. Rampant interventionist nation builder and a social engineer at home.
Meanwhile, Romney has fiscal bonafides that have attracted major libertarian donors like Scott McNealy, the Silicon Valley icon and founder of Sun Microsystems who is adamantly in Romney's camp. Romney also advocates a more careful foreign policy than Santorum.
If Paul is looking at a lesser of two evils and knows that he can't win - and he does know that - he would be smart to train his fire on Santorum.
No guarantees that he will - he's got just enough crazy in him that he might open guns in both directions - but I think the factors cited above will tilt him toward the attack on Santorum - which will give him a platform to wage war against what he views as the very worst tendencies of the GOP.
In an interesting way it actually creates an opportunity for Paul to do more with this campaign than he ever envisioned and to do what he really wants - exposure for his priority issues, a platform for his argument and to mainline more of his own views into the Republican base. Santorum's presence gives him someone to train fire on while maintaining his campaign but without damaging the presumptive nominee.
Stay tuned - I'm gonna see if we can get Nadine Wimmer on this storyline.
- Paul might say "taken out of context" - he means "oops, that didn't sound good to my millions of raging supporters." 
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