Comment: I don't really understand how the part about

Southerners liking preachers stepping on their toes has to do with him reaching out to black voters in SC, but he didn't lose SC or any other state for that matter (with the possible exception of Iowa) because of the negative media blitz attempting to paint him as a racist. He would have beaten Mitt Romney and been nipping at the heels of Gingrich, killing Santorum's momentum if the campaign hadn't had him take several days off while the other candidates were stumping in SC. Meanwhile, Santorum was spreading lies at every single stop he made across the state that Ron Paul supports gay marriage and opposes the Defense of Marriage Act. The second reason he lost badly in SC was his apparent lack of debate coaching. Despite his absence from the state, Dr. Paul was handily beating Santorum in the polls, coming close to second, and surging when he fell hook, line, and sinker into Brett Baier's Osama bin Laden question trap during the Fox debate. Overnight he dropped 4%-7% in the polls and by voting time, was polling dead last. If any of the SC Republican voters that had heard anything about the newsletters cared about them, it was only because they hated Ron Paul for other reasons and they saw that as another bullet in their anti-Paul gun. They would not have been impressed if he reached out to black voters.

Yes, courting black voters would have made him look weak and liberal to most Conservative SCarolinians. Think about what propelled Newt Gingrich to victory in that state.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrj_iFsf8-o

And, if Ron Paul's weak debate performance cost him a third of his potential support as the polls showed it did, then the claim that "those people weren't going to vote for Paul anyway" doesn't hold water. The fact is that Newt was showing pro-welfare blacks what fer and that's the way the SCarolinians liked it. For Paul to then court those pro-welfare blacks would have further alienated him from the mood of the voters.

I apologize for my false preconceptions on all Progressives' economic policies. I think the economic and tax policies you mentioned are terrific and a sight better than anything Mitt Romney is proposing. I still don't think Dr. Paul would have any chance of winning the Republican nomination though if he gave the impression of a Libertarian-Progressive coalition before the general election. Spearheading such a coalition (such as promising a cabinet position to Kucinich and/or Nader) after safely capturing the GOP I think would have been a great idea though.