Supporting Ron Paul is a fad and considered "cool" by college students.

"I agree with you, many people stop caring about an election after it ends, but they shouldn't stop caring aout the candidate(s) they support. It is a fad, in that the majority of people supporting Ron Paul now with enthusiasm will cease to do so after he loses, and he will lose." No, because there is already a draft movements to have Ron Paul run as a libertarian party candidate or an independent. So it doesn't look like people will quit caring after the primaries. I can't say that I have a feeling that he will win, but I think he will do a lot better then people will give him credit for. "I don't think the "love" argument could be made for other politicians because values and strength have always been desireable attributes of a president. Love, traditionally has not been. Althought I think it should be, I think the Ron Paul people are using it as a gimmick, playing on the love and hippie trend that has become popular as of late." Loving Ron Paul is a gimmick? How is it any more of a gimmick then "Vote for this guy because he has values?" Values is just a buzz word to get Christians excited. Last time I checked, not to many Ron Paul supporters were hippies, although some are. "I think that issues "you feel" are important." No, when Mitt Romney says he wants to make strong families, that is a feeling issue because there is no way for the government to force you to be a closer family. But people have strong emotions about families and morality, so to be pro-family sounds good, but when you prod it, it says nothing. Are you pro-family? It's like saying, "Do you support the troops?" or "Do you support the people of Iowa?" Well, I don't know anyone from Iowa, but these whole campaigns are ran basically on mindless slogans like that. Letting currencies backed by gold compete against federal reserve notes doesn't really pander to any sort of emotions equivalent to family or morality. There are important issues about fiat currency and central banking that go back to the beginning of the country. "I have listened to Ron Paul and his ideas and I think they stray from Libertarian values on top of at times being non-sensicle. I'm not a Libertarian and neither is he, but almost everyone who supports him is. I think a lot of new Libertarians don't understand what it means to have libertarian ideals and mistake them for Republican ideals." True, there is some debates among libertarians (mainly those from the Cato Institue and the Ludwig Von Mises Institue) about Ron Paul, but to suggest that he isn't libertarian at all is a stretch. If you go to votematch.com they have all the candidates ranking in a politcal square spectrum and Ron Paul is the only one who falls in the libertarian category. He was the libertarian party candidate in 1988. Here are just some of his libertarian ideals: Ending the war on drugs, non-interventionist foreign policy, cutting taxes and replacing them with nothing, cutting spending, getting the federal government out of schools, for gun rights, against national health care, against corporate welfare, for gold-backed money. The only issues you might be able to make a case that he is not libertarian is abortion and free trade (sort of). He is the favorite candidate of Reason Magazine, the nations largest libertarian magazine. You either don't know what libertarian means or you are thinking of someone else besides Ron Paul. "Although I've never been to a Ron Paul rally, I find the people most passionate about talking about Ron paul are college age kids." Maybe you should go to one. I bet you would have a good time. Second, he is also the most popular with active military personel. The fact that kids are passionate about it seems to suggest that it is more then a fad. People don't get attached to fads, which is what makes them come and go. If Ron Paul were a fad, my friends who don't normally care for politics put support Ron Paul wouldn't be donating time and money to help his cause. "He is radical and that may play a factor, I don't know." And? There are lots of other "radical" candidates running, but none of them have support like Ron Paul. If it was radical that mattered, why not support Dennis Kucinich? I think it is because Ron Paul taps into something those other candidates don't have. "I just think that Ron paul supporters spend their time talking about what they think they know about his campaign, and spend for too little time researching the constitution for example which they seem to mention a lot of. Or any other candidates." I'm not a constitutional scholar, but you don't have to be one to know Ron Paul quotes the constitution more than any other candidate. I have two copies, one of them I got for free at a Ron Paul rally. I think Ron Paul supports spend as much as time researching other candidates as do supporters of any other candidate. Besides, the most "fad" presidential candidate, hands-down, is Barack Obama. He was talked about as a candidate for President before he was even elected to the U.S. Senate. He doesn't have much of a record to examine--which has played to his advantage--and but college students like him because of his youth and charisma. I don't think Ron Paul supporters are drawn to him because of his looks. Most of my democratic friends like Obama, but to get an answer of substance of why they like him is hard to do. Obama supporters just put something on facebook saying they support him; Ron Paul supporters do the same, but also put their money where their mouth is and volunteer through sites like meetup.com