With Rick Santorum claiming major primary victories on Super Tuesday and in Mississippi and Alabam, breaking Mitt Romney‘s “inevitability” has been muddied and the Republican primary is looking more like a two man race. But while Newt Gingrich ignores calls to drop out, Ron Paul has avoided such pressure as his campaign garners less and less attention. This week, the Paul campaign lost its last embedded reporter when NBC news pulled Anthony Terrell from the trail.

“Paul doesn’t have as many events right now as the other candidates in the race,” Fox News politics editor Hunter Ryan told Politico. And it has been noted that the 76-year-old has a less strenuous campaign schedule than the other candidates, spending most weekends at home in Texas. “He is focusing on certain states. I am planning on covering him… [and] a combination of embed and bureau resources will be used to cover Paul going forward.”

But there are surely other reasons for pulling resources from the Paul campaign. Dr. Paul has the least number of delegates of the remaining candidates (66, less than half than Gingrich with 141, and far behind Mitt Romney with 496), and not a single primary win to his name (except in the US Virgin Islands, where he got the most votes, but won less delegates than Romeny). Despite strong showings in Alaska and North Dakota,  and a heartbreaking “virtual tie” in Maine, Paul’s momentum seems to have slowed as his strongest states are now behind him.

Paul has said from the beginning that has campaign is a movement of ideas, and not just about his candidacy; in that sense, he is undoubtedly succeeding, raising the visibility and influence of Libertarian ideals in the Republican party and the country. But if part of the plan was to leverage a high delegate count into a prime speech time at the convention, or even a king-making role, is that strategy in danger? What do you think?

[Source: Politico]

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