At least someone notices...

Excerpts from the LA Times blog:

Well, he's hanging in there. Not only that, but Rep. Ron Paul thumped two reputed Republican heavyweights in the Michigan primary -- former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani, you may recall if you can remember anything as distant as last summer, was the longtime GOP national front-runner in polls... Everybody wondered if anyone had a chance against the hero of 9/11, who defied standard Republican theocracy with his liberal social views.

But, guess what? Ron Paul, the 72-year-old Texas congressman and ob-gyn who delivers babies and a strict view of the Constitution, beat Giuliani in Michigan. And beat him good... he doubled Giuliani's totals of 24,000 votes or 2.8%, getting more than 52,000 votes or 6.3% of the total Republican ballots.

Paul even beat Thompson this time, the real consistent conservative who was supposed to be the next Ronald Reagan... until he actually announced his campaign in September.

Paul just keeps picking up his 6% to 10% each time there's a vote. But Paul also beat Giuliani in Iowa. And he came pretty close to Giuliani in New Hampshire and did, in fact, beat Thompson there. And now in Michigan, Paul beat them both rather handily. He does it by going against virtually all the views of his GOP colleagues including opposing the Iraq war.

Paul's website and new campaign blog claim to have quietly organized more than 7,800 precinct captains around the country. Meantime, Giuliani's top staff is going unpaid this month to save dwindling funds. Is there a pattern here?

Yeah, the pattern is that no matter how much quiet success the Paul campaign racks up, the national level media will continue to label him an "unelectable fringe candidate." It reminds me of the scene in Cool Runnings where the coach protests the team's disqualification, saying they'd done everything the judges asked, and done it with everyone laughing in their faces. Like that team, Paul and his supporters have earned the right to wave their flag and discuss their views. Every time he's omitted in polling results as some kind of embarrassing asterisk, the press show how disinterested they are in complete, accurate and fair reporting.