Skinnydevil, your words are warm and welcome on a cold evening, and your predictions are so far on target. Your posts are like poetry. You have the gift. If you won't run for political office, which I can't blame you at all about, I think you'd make a good political strategist or ad maker for a relatively honest party like the Libertarians. But how to partake in politics without becoming corrupted by it? That's the question.
NH is Romney's back yard, so he has the advantage there. If Ron Paul beats Romney in NH, that should finish Romney, but if Romney wins in both Iowa and NH, then Ron will probably be relegated to obscurity by the media and it will be Romney vs. Perry, Santorum, and Gingrich, with Perry probably getting some rejuvenation in the later Southern primaries, and then it would probably come down to Perry vs. Romney in the Midwest and Western states.
Regardless of who wins, the Libertarian phenomenon will roll on, for better or worse, thanks to the inherently libertarian Internet. The dingbat Republican establishment haven't figured that out yet and for some insane reason attack libertarians instead of joining forces with them to defeat Obama. Instead of fighting the inevitable, they should be jumping on the bandwagon (which I predict the chameleon Romney will gladly do if he sees that the polls suggest it and he senses that the tide has turned inexorably to libertarianism). Internet polls are still not representative of the public at large, however, but they increasingly will be as more and more people go online and are absorbed into the cyber-mind.
I must admit that the Ron Paul ads seem much better, propaganda-wise than they were before, judging from youtube:-
The Compassion of Dr. Ron Paul
Quite right, Englishman, that first ad is one of the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the Neocons and the media they bought have smartened up and started to attack Ron Paul on the honesty angle. If they can show that Ron DID write the nasty stuff he has disowned, then poor Ron is probably cooked. A generally honest man who is proclaimed as honest is held to much higher standards than the usual political scum.
The hypocritical Neocons will try to nail Ron to a politically correct cross. I care less about the crotchety things Ron has written than the fact that he will do his utmost to stop the tide of red ink, the vain and suicidal attempts at hegemonic empire building, the growing fragility of our nation, and the crumbling of our core values.