paul does fair

Based on the returns I saw, Paul placed 5th in the Iowa caucuses. Ahead of the events of September 11th. I can expect no higher finishes. But I read a story here which makes one wonder:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article847.html
He probably could do worse than to align himself with a compromise for his plan to reduce the size and scope of government by starting with one of the principal ways government has grown: The means by which it gathers it's funding. It's also a nice free organized group that was able to mobilize early support for the little known Huckabee, prior to his 'social conservative' message that woke up the religious right. I'd prefer to separate his spending from the fair tax, because it's pretty clear from the current 'social conservative' we have in office that spending is not part of the 'conservative' element.

Some good news for the younger voters: Clinton finishes third and seems disheveled in her campaign right now. With Edwards being a proven idiot, that means Obama just needs to not be a total moron. He doesn't really have many good or great ideas. But the guy knows how to make a speech and get people to do things, or at least believe people can, which really seems like the job description anymore (frame ideas so other people carry them out). I really don't want to go into November with a chance of Hillary being elected. I can live with Obama being elected, but I won't like it. I won't like the idea of Huckabee being elected, but considering his competition, Paul's probably the only one I'd be happy with (McCain v2000, yes, v2008, no).

What I'm seeing in the political spin of all this that sounds good to me thus far is that there appears to be a separation between the political parties and their traditional power bases. The religious people are still firmly GOP, but I can't expect ultra-religious conservatives to change their minds fast. But the labor unions don't sound like such a big deal for the Democrats anymore. Hopefully that means that eventually we'll start seeing some more significant parties. Because it does seem that while religion determines some votes, it's not going to resonate everywhere as much as smaller government does. Paul will probably get a similar level of support just about everywhere for this reason, where as Huckabee will see some wide swings and is still not seeing the funding that Paul is hauling in (despite the unlikely nature of his nomination too). We're not as a country ready to revert back to ideas from our past that actually showed promise and worked. But I'm not ready to say we should adopt ideas that have shown themselves not to work anywhere either simply because someone can make a speech either.