This thread is a joke. I’ll tell you why.
First: This country hasn’t been interested in actual democracy since its inception and its interest in the properties of a republic have been questionable for nearly as long. The electoral system in this country is a fraud and is used primarily as a distraction. This leads to point two.
Second: It’s a distraction. Why should people be concerned about presidential primaries this far in advance? Ask yourself is there even a 1/100th of this coverage being devoted to your local elections that are taking place this quarter? How about even this year? Why is presidential election that is about two years away getting almost as many headlines as the war in Iraq? Why does coverage of presidential elections get more coverage than congressional? Why does coverage of presidential elections get longer and longer and further in advance of the actual election every four years? Showing interest in American Idol is more significant at this point that being interested in the ’08 potential presidential candidates.
Third: How many Americans do you think even understand the primary process? Let alone the nomination process or the electoral process? How many on this site do you think understand any of that?
Fourth: This Ron Paul garbage. It’s great to have opinions and support who ever you want to support, but dude doesn’t have a shot in hell of even getting a significant chunk of the popular vote, let a lone a single electoral vote. His platform isn’t even feasible or reasonable. His losing elections on purpose does nothing to advance the cause of libertarianism, in fact it just shows the majority parties that libertarianism should be ignored further by how little support it actually gets among the voting populace. Libertarians that understand their own stupid ideology don’t vote anyway. Claiming he leads internet polls is like saying Eddie Murphy leads in the greatest comic poll held by the Eddie Murphy fan club.