Ron Paul Fans Return, as Tea Partiers

If you polled the protesters at Saturday’s tea party protest on who they voted for in the Republican primaries, Tom Schaller of FiveThirtyEight.com has a sneaking suspicion they’d reply, “Ron Paul.” The protesters focus on libertarian complaints and rhetoric, and bear that familiar Paulite intensity. The first protester to tote a gun at an Obama rally is a Paul fan, and the man who brought an AR-15 is an ex-Paul campaign volunteer.

If the groups really do have major overlap, it’s ironic for two reasons: First, “the same ‘mainstream/liberal media’ that ignored and dissed Ron Paul and his supporters are now bending over backward to give them coverage beyond their actual numbers,” Schaller writes. Second, a movement that couldn’t even nominate its preferred candidate is now being asked to drive the Republican agenda. (More Ron Paul stories.)