Our primary process forces candidates to cater to the base, and immediately afterward, cater to everyone else. If you are a Democrat, that means you spend your primary telling people how you will crush big business to save the environment while, in the same breath, telling the union workers you will allow big business to grow into even bigger monopolies in exchange for sweet labor contracts for the few jobs they decide to keep in the US. If you are a Republican, that means you spend half your time proving your pro-life credentials and your neighborly spirit, while spending the other time explaining how you will shrink the size and scope of the federal government. Nobody can be all things to all people, so the gymnastic exercise is a ridiculous but necessary part of the process, and some are better at it than others. I don't think there is a person out there, right or left, who really would rather have Romney spend time doing ANYTHING to our current abortion laws before he fixes our economy. Obama, on the other hand, stuck with his base and made socialized medicine his first objective while the country sat in the midst of "The worst recession since the great depression". Inability to pivot is perhaps the primary reason he is a failure.
I retract. An even sadder state of affairs this shows. Some candidates choose not to do that, such as Ron Paul, and actually stick with their values and what they stand for. However, in his lack of pandering to 'everyone,' along with being shunned by mainstream media, he's become a highly unpopular candidate by the public. Too bad the masses don't know what's actually good for them. They'd rather just take their spoonfuls of media speak at bedtime to determine what they should do.
Your cohort in this thread has already pointed out that Paul has MORE public support this time than in his last run. Try to coordinate a little better... it cant be both ways. Sounds a helluvalot like the guys in the White House. It's pretty condescending coming from either side. It's rhetoric like that from his faithful which has gotten Paul less support than he'd probably have otherwise. Personally I'd rather see people have a healthy distrust of politicians than worship them. The last Messiah hasn't exactly lived up to the hype. So go ahead and make fun of people being "spoonfed" all you want, but pseudo-religious zealotry in the godlike qualities of ANY politician doesnt exactly stick one at the top of the mental food chain.
I was referring as a whole with all of the public, not just an increase in support. If he's only getting around 15% of the Republican base, then that's what I'm referring to as unpopular with the public. I'm not saying he is the messiah, I'm just stating that I think that he's better than the other two jokers that are at the head of each respective party at this time, Obama, and Romney. I actually agree with you on the healthy distrust of politicians. I'm saying that people are not that way and basically take what the mainstream media feeds them on the news as complete, unbiased fact. They usually just pick one candidate or one from each party and basically just endorse that candidate subtly, while bashing the other candidates. In this case, Paul went from getting almost no coverage, to being portrayed as both racist and highly negatively. However, Romney comes out looking like the golden boy, as if he's never done anything wrong as they sway the people to go towards his side. If people were actually more informed on politics as well as what candidates were actually about and had the healthy mistrust and also didn't just take what the media says at face value, this country would be a lot better off politically.