WHO WOULD VOTE FOR RON PAUL IF HE RAN FROM PRESIDENT AS A THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE?

Before you tell me that the correct answer is "Just wingnuts and wackos," read what Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi told an interviewer for Reason:

reason: Right now there's this weird overlap where Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has an increasing fan base among left-wingers. Is this a turning point in American politics?

Taibbi: People are steadily growing disenchanted with red state versus blue state -- this really aggressive storyline where if you're conservative you have to hate liberals, and if you're liberal then you have to hate conservatives. For the first time on the campaign trail that I've seen, people are saying, "I haven't spoken to my liberal brother in years but we're actually talking now because we're both disappointed in our respective parties, and we’re both getting behind Ron Paul." There's more on-the-ground energy for Ron Paul than there is for the rest of the candidates combined.

In theory, it should be absurdly easy to persuade liberals not to vote for Paul -- when you go looking for his links to the fringe right, there's so much to talk about. But American voters -- sorry if this offends you, Joe Biden -- often fall for the myth of a candidate's apparent eclecticism, mistaking it for a willingness to build bridges even when it's nothing of the sort. Mainy fairly liberal voters in Connecticut cast ballots for Joe Lieberman even though he had what they considered utterly loathsome views on the war. Why should we assume similarly liberal voters won't vote for Paul, whose views of the war are appealing but who utterly loathsome views on virtually everything else?