Incumbent defeats challenger 70%-30%

No big deal, the challenger in an election always has a disadvantage. But based on the coverage of certain conservative news outlets, one would have thought that once the votes were counted the race for Ron Paul's congressional seat would have been much closer than the final tally. How could the Pajamas Media Right be so wrong? Remember this:

While pursuing his thus far quixotic quest for the presidency, Congressman Paul has fallen behind by over ten points in the polls (43-32) in the fight for the Republican nomination in the Texas 14th to challenger Chris Peden, according to internal polls from both campaigns, which Pajamas Media was told were quite similar.

Reason magazine offers this:

The part about Peden's poll was true—sort of. According to Peden's political director Onzelo Markum, the campaign ran one automated poll in the district. It was not a blind test. People who picked up their phones were told that incumbent Ron Paul didn't support the war on terror, while councilman Chris Peden did. Only when given that informed choice did voters claim to support Peden.

Click here for the rest of the story.

The problem that the GOP faces now is that Dr. Paul has promised to continue his presidential campaign as long as the money and support keeps coming in. While it's easy to dismiss a candidate who hasn't broken single digits in any of the primaries so far, time and money are on his side. His position on the economy and limited government and most everything else are winners across the board for most GOP voters. He's also on the right side as far as Iraq is concerned with the general population.

John McCain still has issues with the hardcore conservatives (like me) and his FEC issues, while being dismissed by his campaign, are not going to go away in a general election. In fact, the Dems have (and should) position themselves to keep campaign finance on the front burner "Look, McCain can't even follow McCain-Feingold!". Of course, irony of ironies would be if Hillary is the nominee.