We learn from Instapundit/Marc Ambinder that Mitt Romney won big in Maine today, 53-21% over John McCain.  But here’s something more impressive: Check out Ron Paul’s strong third place finish: 19%.  If this were any time earlier than the eve of Super Tuesday, and if there were more than just three other candidates left in the race on the Republican side, you might argue that Ron Paul had scored big.  Probably, though, he’ll be overlooked.

Fun item in the Los Angeles Times’ Top of the Ticket blog today:

Feel the need to check on Rep. Ron Paul’s impressive fundraising that’s still outpacing his better-known Republican competitors? Watch the spinning fundraising dial here and witness the crossing off of photos of all the GOP candidates who are now former candidates while Paul and his legions of no-name supporters keep chugging along under the radar of most media.

Republican pandering in Florida just ain’t what to used to be.

Take Fidel Castro.  Used to be we could end that by saying ‘please.’  We can’t even do that anymore.

Castro merited but one mention in last night’s Republican debate.

Rudy Giuliani:

“The longest dictatorship, I believe, in the modern world, is the one of Fidel Castro. The presumption is that if you’re fleeing Fidel Castro, given decades and decades of murder, oppression — including, most recently, the way he cracked down on the Cambio Group, Brothers to the Rescue, all of these things — there’s a presumption in the immigration law that if you’re fleeing Fidel Castro, you’re fleeing political persecution.”

In the good old days, an opponent surely would have tried to trump Giuliani by saying, “Fidel, you ignorant slut.”  Alas, last night nothing of the sort.

Israel, too, came in for short rhetorical shrift.

John McCain was the lone voice in asserting this:

“There’s many people who are concerned and have a priority of the — the independence of the state of Israel. They know that I know how to keep Israel independent as well.”

Fine, but where was the thunderous acknowledgment that a strong Israel is in the best interest of a strong America?  And even McCain’s statement was a wee bit confusing — is Israel’s independence at stake?  Security, yes — always.  But independence?  From whom?  Perhaps McCain was confusing independent voters with Likud and Labor voters.

The only real pandering we could spot was courtesy Ron Paul.  Social Security got only tepid discussion from Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.  Ron Paul, however, said he’s still in favor of abolishing Social Security …. but ….”not overnight. As a matter of fact, my — my program’s the only one that is going to be able to take care of the elderly.”

Thank goodness.  A glimpse of Florida reality.  John McCain’s 95-year-old mother should feel socially secure if Ron Paul wins.

Remember in 1984 when Ronald Reagan said of Walter Mondale,  “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

We’re reminded of that after reading this bizarre line of attack by Mike Huckabee booster Chuck Norris of John McCain:

“I didn’t pick John to support because I’m just afraid that the vice president would wind up taking over his job in that four-year presidency. We need to find someone that can handle it for four years or eight years … that has the youth and vision and communication skills to make that work.”

It’s a dismissal and discounting of the Reagan Revolution.  The L.A. Times’ Top of the Ticket blog also notes that McCain “is actually not the oldest candidate in the race. That distinction belongs to Rep. Ron Paul, who’s 72 already.”  But more important, according to Top of the Ticket, Chuck Norris will be “a creaky 68 on Inauguration Day and at that advanced age could well be fumbling the TV remote watching his old ads through the nights from assisted living.”

Forget Super Tuesday.  Consider, please, the pure power of Feb. 12 — when DC, Maryland, and Virginia vote.  The Pundit Primary.  What those states lack in delegates they make up in sheer noise in dominating the political media.  At-large delegates mean nothing next to larger-than-life celebrity journalists bloviating and pontificating about the candidates.

Which makes this all the more interesting:

On Virginia’s ballot (at least in Fairfax County), in what order do the Republican candidates appear?  Like this…

• Ron Paul
• John McCain
• Fred D. Thompson
• Mike Huckabee
• Rudy Giuliani
• Mitt Romney

Which places Ron Paul squarely on top of the ballot in prime position to, well, to do something quite interesting in Virginia.

And a footnote: Fred Thompson is the only candidate whose middle initial made it onto the ballot.  D, for Dalton.  The name Dalton is legendary in recent Republican Virginia history: Former Gov. John N. Dalton was a popular conservative Republican who led the Virginia Republican Party to dominance in the 1970’s and was one of the state’s most popular Governors when he served served from 1977 to 1981.

A candidate with a middle name Dalton versus Ron Paul.  What more do you want for a  sensational Pundit Primary?

Extreme Mortman senior historian Richard Andrews, a veteran of many convention platform and rules battles, flags a looming Republican convention controversy:

Never too early to think about this.

If John McCain is the nominee, there is going to be a problem at the Convention with his immigration stance.

The folks who get elected delegate to Republican National Conventions (regardless of their preference in nominee) hold views sharply different from the senator (and from President Bush) on this topic. It can be expected that the delegates will seek to have a Platform plank that hews strongly to ‘a fence and deportation’ as THE solutions to the illegal immigration problem. It can also be expected that the nominee (if McCain) and the President’s satraps in the Party will attempt to squelch this. What fun!

The rest of the Platform will be the usual stuff, per the script. The only strong objections to this will come from the increasingly lonely remnants of pro-choice Republicans (far stronger in the leadership & elected officials than amongst the rank & file) and from the Ron Paul supporters. (IF his delegates actually ARE supporters of Dr. Paul - in some states where he may have been allotted seats because of vote proportionality, the actual delegates may be party hacks appointed by state GOP leaders; this has happened before.) Both of these groups will find that opening the Platform for debate & amendment on the floor of the Convention requires, under the Rules, control of at least five delegations - which they won’t have, so the matter just won’t come up.

Ron Paul certainly deserves attention today.

The Los Angeles Times’ Top of the Ticket blog has the best coverage:

Boy, oh, boy! Hidden behind all the hoopla, headlines and the Nevada caucus victories of Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton is one little-noticed but stunning political development and number:

Ron Paul, the one-time Libertarian candidate and 10-term Republican congressman from Texas, was in second place. That’s right, Second Place. The 72-year-old ob-gyn who’s always on the end of the line at GOP debates or barred altogether, was running ahead of John McCain, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, in fact, ahead of all other Republicans except Romney, who easily captured his second state in a week after Michigan …

The results tonight will show whether Ron Paul’s fine morning and afternoon turn into a nice all-around day or not. Either way, he was likely the top GOP fundraiser in the fourth quarter, raising nearly $20 million, and his website reports gathering in another $1.34 million so far this month. So while Giuliani stopped paying his top staff this month, Paul is likely to linger long.

Paul’s crowd plans another “money bomb” on Monday when thousands will deliver new donations on the same day.

Tough to find much Ron Paul coverage elsewhere in the mainstream media this morning.  His folks probably like it that way.  Evens the playing field.

Just because he’s not likely to win anything doesn’t mean there’s no news to report from the runaway Ron Paul juggernaut.

In fact, just this morning we learn from the L.A. Times’ “Top the Ticket” blog:

Get ready, California. Here comes Ron Paul! Literally.

After thousands of radio and TV ads have bombarded the early-voting states for months, Californians’ ears are about to be exposed to the biographical story of Paul, who’s gained growing attention in recent weeks for his amazing fundraising success; Paul’s fervent followers raised nearly $20 million in the fourth quarter alone, including a new online one-day donation record in excess of $6 million. With those funds the 72-year-old, 10-term Texas Congressman with the libertarian ideals is launching an eight-state ad campaign on radio stations in California, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, North Dakota, Louisiana, Maine and Florida this week.

The ad is biographical, detailing his background and hinting at his long-time opposition to increased government spending. Here is the ad text:

“Who is Ron Paul, the Republican candidate for president?  Ron Paul served his country as a flight surgeon after the Cuban missile crisis. As a young doctor, Ron Paul worked nights in the emergency room of an inner city hospital, taking care of everyone, whether they could pay or not. As an ob/gyn, Ron Paul delivered over 4,000 babies. Dr. Ron Paul knows our healthcare system needs real change,   where patients and doctors are in charge, not big corporations or government bureaucrats….”

Top the Ticket also reports:

And tonight, Paul himself will be in California. It seems his exclusion from Sunday’s Fox News GOP debate resulted in an invite for his second appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”  on NBC. Hey, it worked for Mike Huckabee last week, who chatted with Jay on the eve of the Iowa caucus and then won them.

And you’ll see from this YouTube video why grassroots activism makes the difference these days…

There is ample evidence to suggest that the Internet has greatly influenced the Ron Paul for president campaign.

But what about the opposite — has Ron Paul influenced the Internet?

For wise insight, we asked Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times’ “Top of the Ticket” blog to share his Ron Paul experience — as a blogger and as a seasoned political observer.  Here is Andrew’s frontline report:

The story of Ron Paul’s campaign, especially the fundraising success and attraction of thousands of supporters, is one of the best of the ‘08 campaign. So we’ve tried to come at it from several different angles, doing blog items on various fundraising successes, the growth of his meet-up groups, and even an item examining some of the several hundred comments that another item had elicited.

Ron Paulites or Paulunteers as we now call them are passionate about their candidate. Within minutes of an item posting, they are leaving comments and this can go on for a day or two, several hundred total. In the beginning many were crude or obscene, but at the urging of fellow supporters they seem to have mellowed in recent weeks.

A Paul item like “Ron Paul supporters DO NOT READ THIS! Please!”  can attract more than 60,000 readers in a day. I think our record was 500 comments.

This puts Ron Paul items among the biggest draws, although we’ve done items on other candidates that have drawn several hundred thousand hits. Other big draws include Hillary Clinton, Larry Craig and Oprah. But no one draws comments like Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is the only candidate we list by name in our blogroll, so people can search for the many items we’ve done on him. Much of the comments, I must say, are very negative. They object to the lack of coverage of their candidate and then when they get coverage they object to the smallest and largest details.

I’ve taken to adding replies to many comments to get a dialogue going and it’s really quite fun. They denounce the msm newspapers as outdated and dying and then complain when they learn that blog items do not appear in that allegedly outdated institution but only online. So we go back and forth and have a real dialogue and learn more about each other. It’s quite time-consuming. Some express amazement that someone actually reads and replies, but I enjoy it.

We did receive some appreciation when late on one Sunday night we did an item about his breaking the one-day online fundraising record and getting more than $6 million.

As we’ve done with other candidates, one day we even took  an entire page from Paul’s website and ran an item In His Own Words: Ron Paul.

But other items which appear to dis Dr. Paul or sound sarcastic get far more reaction. And they forget the previous items that pleased them.

Ron Paul supporters also appear not to read items about other candidates because they often ask why we don’t write sarcastic or negative items on them when we do. We try to be an equal opportunity offender.

Fascinating AP story:

Supporters of long-shot presidential hopeful Ron Paul say the Montana Republican Party’s quirky caucus rules could create an opening for their candidate that other states don’t offer.

Under the “closed caucus” system recently adopted by the Montana GOP, voting in the Feb. 5 caucus will be limited to about 3,000 Republicans who hold party posts, such as members of Congress, statewide officeholders and precinct captains. That includes hundreds of volunteer precinct posts that have long been vacant and that some candidates are now scrambling to fill with supporters.

At least three presidential candidates — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Paul, a Texas congressman — are organizing in the state. A fourth candidate, John McCain, recently hired a Montana campaign chair.

Gotta love party insiders picking delegates — the good old days.