Comment: Thank you Granger

Yours is the by far the most thoughtful but critical reply to what I am advocating. I admit that your wisdom on the experience of independent campaigns is far superior to mine. yet as wise as you are there, you can't tell me you actually believe Ron Paul has a shot at getting the GOP nomination, can you? Even if Romney agreed to have him on the ticket, he would lose millions of neo-con votes and a neocon would find a cultural conservative to mount a write-in campaign run that would give Obama the win.

I would also say that I was one who was very angry with Nader for what happened to Al Gore but the times are different. We are in the midst of an unending war and both parties are trying to expand it to Iran. The American people are growing weary of war and as Ron Paul points out, we can no longer afford it.

The establishment will of course try to resist an independent campaign. But I think a real coalition candidacy would overwhelm that resistance. I am not hopeful that such a campaign will be formed and you are probably right that Ron Paul has made up his mind to stick with the GOP and the actuarial strategy of reforming it.

My point is that will take another 12 years minimum. With mounting debt and relentless underemployment, a war stimulus is most likely what both parties have in mind. Theirs is a struggle not over policy but over who hands out the contracts.

All of this adds up to me thinking that there is easily 25% of the voting population who would support a coalition ticket this year. It might not grow to 34% or be able to win the electoral college but it could be a loud enough voice to get both parties to think twice about escalating this war for war profiteers. And if they did make the mistake of getting us into another middle east fiasco, a coalition candidacy would crush both parties in 2020.

Maybe this is all a hail Mary on my part. I just see the lights fading on this campaign. The prime time speech will be tolerated and his non endorsement be seen as good news to a party hell bent on violence as the means to economic prosperity.

Again I thank you for a wise critical response. It's a rarity here as well as on the Huffington Post.

May the God of Peace prevail where we fail.