Ron Paul Comes in Last in Florida, but He’s Just Getting Started (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | He comes in dead last in the Florida primary, but Ron Paul says that’s OK because he’s just getting started. The GOP race to the nomination started months ago and Paul’s entire campaign is nothing but a Republican spoiler as it continues to detract from the only two viable candidates left in the race.

The Texas congressman ran no television ads in Florida, nor did he actively campaign there or hire staffers. ABC News reported that from the onset, Paul determined he was no match for Florida’s winner-take-all primary contest. With that, he moved to Nevada and Colorado, the next caucus states that will vote.

Wise move from the perspective of saving resources, but a very stupid move if he is trying to prove his viability as a legitimate, serious candidate for the Republican nomination. But, that’s the key: He’s not either of those.

Paul’s strategy is to rack up delegates in the caucus states where the rules are more favorable to his highly enthusiastic supporters, but winning the nomination isn’t all about hand-picking the contests that a candidate may want to challenge.

It’s about amassing enough delegates to win the nomination. Objectively, that is clearly not a realistic goal that Paul can ever achieve. That leaves only one other conclusion: he’s a convention spoiler that is intent on drawing the resources from Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, the only two viable candidates left in the race.

As the Associated Press reported after the South Carolina primary, Paul’s supporters seem to have an excuse for every defeat. Even the candidate said that even defeats in New Hampshire and South Carolina were unimportant and he would focus on caucus state delegates because “that’s the name of the game.”

But, in reality, Paul didn’t do well in the Iowa caucuses either. So now he heads to Nevada where he believes Hispanic voters will give him a win. That is, until Romney unleashed a media blitz that will again splash Paul’s campaign into a last place finish.

Paul’s supporters like to claim a media bias against their candidate. That’s simply not true. The media recognizes that Ron Paul’s positions are outside mainstream positions of the Republican Party as a whole, which will exclude him from ever attaining the nomination.