If you strike him down...

...he'll become more powerful than you could ever imagine...

Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is – virtually dead even.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Ask the Political Class, though, and it’s a blowout. While 58% of Mainstream voters favor Paul, 95% of the Political Class vote for Obama.

In other words, the "bipartisan" minions of Big Government support the Huge Government candidate, while everyone else supports the guy who believes a Constitutional "whoa" is in order to runaway government. Seems John Edwards was right: there are two Americas... one insulated in the halls of power, and the other exposed on Main Street.

Final thought: the fact the Republicans deemed Paul 'unelectable' in 2008 just underscores their lack of conservative bona fides... not to mention political horse sense.