With his ascension in the polls, Dr. Paul (and his supporters) have to realize that his views -- all his views -- are going to come in for greater scrutiny. The problem is that there is plenty to find. Most of Dr. Paul's supporters, driven by their frustration with the size, waste and inefficiency of government simply focus on their areas of agreement with him. But what they need to realize is that Dr. Paul comes with plenty of baggage, some of it quite ugly and wrong, like the racist language in his old newsletters.
There's no doubt that the Obama campaign would love to make something of Ron Paul -- both to try to paint at least some GOP'ers with a racist brush (by attributing agreement with all his statements to his supporters) -- and are hopeful because Paul has refused to rule out a third party race.
But what the President and his team had better understand is that, for every disgruntled fan of small government who's willing to overlook Paul's statements to "make a point" by voting for Paul should he run third party, there may be a disgruntled nutjob like Jules Manson, aspiring politician on the Libertarian and Democrat tickets), who believed in Obama when he disavowed the Bush war on terror. In other words, the political danger of a Ron Paul third party run might not be exclusively for the Republicans.