Could Ron Paul actually win the GOP nomination?

[tpfkaw]

Could he?  Yes.  But the chances are much smaller than what the RP people are saying.

If there's any chance he could, then his chances cannot be much smaller than what the RP people are saying.

(For the record, he has no chance, if only for the reason as I've said already that even if a large number of the delegates are ninjas, they'd just declare Romney nominated by acclamation and cut the audio from the floor).

[tpfkaw]

From what I recall, Libertarianism is hardly the "original" form of the GOP. They supported government projects such as a massive trans-continental railroad, government control if personal lives through prohibition, & of course, imperialism. We should stop pretending the Republicans started ff as some great libertarian or paleo-conservative force in the 1860's.

Well of course, they always were a solidly "big government" party except arguably during the half-century c. 1920-1970.  Nevertheless, in comparison to the modern GOP the early version seems quite libertarian or paleo-conservative in many aspects.  It would of course be historically better to take over the Democrats, who were always the more libertarian until the early '30s, but that's not even remotely within the realm of possibility.