Texas Congressman Ron Paul was especially buoyant during his weekend visit to the Granite State.
He had every reason to be bubbly.
His 76th birthday was on Saturday, and he’s gotten all kinds of favorable publicity as birthday presents.
One piece of good news -- though his supporters say it wasn’t played up enough by the mainstream media ( lamestream media, if you’re a Sarah Palin fan) -- was his second place finish to Michele Bachmann in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll the previous weekend.
And it wasn’t just a second place finish; it was a very close second place finish behind the congresswoman from Minnesota -- a scant 0.9 percent.
Then he came here to the first-in-the-nation primary state to open his campaign headquarters in Concord, do some politicking, then attend a Young Republican lobster bake and straw poll in New Castle.
He won that straw poll:
- Ron Paul, 45 percent
- Mitt Romney, 10 percent
- Rick Perry, 8 percent
- Thaddeus McCotter, 8 percent
- Gary Johnson, 6 percent
- Herman Cain, 5 percent
- Michele Bachmann, 5 percent
- Jon Huntsman, 3 percent
- Rick Santorum, 3 percent
- Newt Gingrich, 1 percent
- Paul Ryan, 1 percent
- Rudy Giuliani, 1 percent
To be fair, voter surveys of every stripe -- phone polls, straw polls -- are simply snapshots of a given mood at a given time.
They’re not necessarily predictors of the future, but they are indicators of the present.
And for the New Hampshire Republican primary it puts Paul and his Libertarian view of politics right up there with the other Tier I candidates: Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and -- at least for the time being -- Rick Perry.
His supporters are passionate in their support for him, in part because of his plain spokenness and in part because he doesn’t try to appeal to all the people all of the time. He can be conservative about his economic policies and his advocacy of government’s limited role, but he’ll also swing to liberal in his support to legalize marijuana.
The question for Paul -- indeed the question for all of the candidates -- is whether they can translate their relatively narrow popular support into wide enough support for 1) the GOP nomination and 2) election as president.
It’s the kind of appeal that’s needed to attract Republicans, attract independents and indeed attract enough cross-over, disillusioned Democrats to make the difference.
Right now it’s about momentum that can carry you forward for the long haul, instead of fading as Gingrich and Santorum have done.
Paul is making enough noise now to be a factor for the long haul.
Paul Briand is an editor/blogger for the non-partisan, non-profit Live Free or Die Association. See the LFDA's complete coverage of the 2012 presidential primary in New Hampshire here.
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