Noooooooooooooo!

Seems like we won't have Google Ron Paul to kick around any more.

The erstwhile limited government Republican/Internet geeks' 2008 answer to Howard Dean wiped the drive of his presidential campaign today, saying instead he will form an organization bent on finding and electing "limited government" politicians to public office. His new website is here: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

True, he had no chance of winning the Republican nomination, once the John McCain Geriatric Juggernaut woke up and angrily asked who had snatched its newspaper. But now who am I going to vote for in November? I'll have to shoulder more of the blame for whoever gets in (or loses). I kinda know, now, how Hillary Clinton's supporters felt when she bailed on them a week ago.

This announcement, I'm sure, is causing much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Intertubes. Paul's supporters, who pop up in the oddest of places, including in You Tube reviews of old Carol Burnett show skits, debates on the best brand of pantyhose and certainly anywhere the wearers of tinfoil hats gather, have got to be disillusioned. Well, probably not, considering who they were bucking for in the primaries, but still.

I suppose I could take the same approach I took at the primary election when confronted the the one (and only) candidate running for our local county prosecutor. I wrote in "Anyone else but him."

His departure also doesn't mean his supporters will take his campaign signs down. No chance. It's always fascinated me, the treatment campaign signs receive after the election is over. The winners almost invariably collect their signs, eager to preserve them for the general election, and perhaps elections to come if the weather wasn't too harsh on them. The losers, however, somehow always manage to leave their signs up forever, weathering in the sun, collecting trash at their stakes, flapping forlornly in the breeze, as forgotten as corn husks after the barbecue is over.

I think they're shaming us. Hoping, in some way, that the signs will be passed over at roadside trash collections, survive past the general election, perhaps a year or so into the winner's time in office. Then, as things turn sour and we, the voter, become embittered with those elected to public office. When we see their opponents' signs, standing defiantly among the waist-high weeds on the roadside, they hope we remember our vote and choke -- and then consider, maybe, voting for them at a future date. When they'll be victorious. And change everything. While their opponents leave their signs up, hoping they'll survive a year or two . . .