Ron Paul was declared winner this morning of the Republican MySpace primary, beating Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, 37 to 18 to 16 percent. I just heard him speak on health care at Des Moines University, a medical school. I won't recount the details of the speech, but suffice to say, Ron Paul believes eliminating the income tax will solve our health care crisis. "One thing we've been taught too often is that health care is a right," he said. "Health care isn't a right, having a house isn't a right -- not in a free country." In response to a question on whether his anti-abortion rights position was in keeping with his pro-gun ideology ("How can you be pro-life if you support gun ownership?), Paul said, "It's very important to own a gun so you can protect that baby in your house!" Oddly, apart from a few vociferously cheering supporters in the back of the lecture hall, almost everyone in the room was a journalist, an out-of-stater, or a curious DMU student who had no intention of caucusing for Paul. When the event ended, about a dozen journalists scrambled to interview the few legitimate Paul supporters. There weren't enough of them to go around. Barring a surprise ascendancy to third place here in Iowa tonight, the Paul candidacy appears at this point to be about 25 percent online fundraising muscle, 25 percent isolationist anger over Iraq, and 50 percent media spectacle. Even fervent young Paul supporters question their candidate's policy seriousness. After the event, I caught up with Zach Houghton, a DePaul University law school student who had driven all the way from Illinois to hand out Ron Paul Slim Jims on caucus day. "The main issue is the war," he said, "bringing the troops home." While Houghton said he liked Paul's position on the income tax, he admitted it probably wasn't "practical," since the tax accounts for a large portion of the federal budget. "Paul talks about how there wasn't an income tax until 1913, but I'm not sure if we want our society to look like it did in 1913," Houghton said thoughtfully. Houghton voted for John Kerry in 2004, and his second choice this year is Barack Obama. His companion, Mitch Herdon, a undergrad at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, said he "very much" regretted his vote for George W. Bush in 2004 and considered Hillary Clinton his backup candidate because of her plan to achieve universal health care. In other words, these guys' support for Ron Paul has more to do with style than substance. They like that he holds the Republican field's feet to the fire on Iraq, but they aren't deeply invested in his radical monetary policies. --Dana Goldstein
