The Hill News

Ron Paul said on Fox News Thursday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry “doesn’t identify with the people who are disenchanted with the status quo.” But a Texas Lyceum statewide poll conducted a few weeks ago showed Paul ahead of Perry by only an inch, Paul at 10 percent and Perry at 9. And Paul has been campaigning constantly now for almost four years, while Perry hasn’t even entered the race yet.

Paul is a different man today from when he ran as a quixotic anti-war outsider in 2008. He is part of the establishment; proud and smug at the grown-ups' table after all those years. Today he quips knowing asides about Sarah Palin to the other black suits ... not one of us, don’tcha know. Today he does interviews with the quintessentially mainstream Al Hunt on Bloomberg TV. Gone are the days when only outsider libertarian and tiny apocalyptic political journals listened. Days when he hoped to shock on Fox by quoting utopian socialist Upton Sinclair: "When fascism com! es to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” â€" suggesting, of course, the last Republican administration. I didn’t hear that in the Hunt interview.

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