Remember how Ralph Nader's votes took the 2000 Presidential election away from Al Gore?

Well, it could happen again, but this time around in favor of the Democrats.

At they Denver's convention, this week-end, the Libertarians have picked former Republican Congressman Bob Barr to be its Presidential candidate.

He will likely get a lot of the votes that went to Ron Paul during the Republican primaries.It will not be a very high percentage of the vote, but it could reach up to 2 or 3 %.

Ezra Klein is nominating Ron Paul for the president of Second Life based on this ad. Me? I thought the cameos by Shrek and the puppets from Toy Story were a bit much.

I've said it before elsewhere and I'll say it again here: Ron Paul makes a much better congressman than he would ever make a president. Embittered and disappointed Paul supporters let their idealism cloud their judgment and became lost in dreams of "reLOVEution." Politics, however, is about the art of the possible.

The Kansas Republican caucuses are today. I was skipping, but just ran into a friend who was there. There was a big crowd, even though the GOP nomination is pretty much sown up for John McCain on Tuesday.

What's happening? It seems that our hearty band of local anarchists - noy an insult; that's who they are - decided to crash the party on behalf of Ron Paul. It's fair to say that the anarchists and. GOP activists don't rub elbows all that much, usually, even in Lawrence - so I'm kind of wishing I'd gone.

While I'm glad that we found out about Ron Paul's racist newsletters and were treated to all the ensuing hubub, I've got a question: Can anybody remember when another minor candidate -- one who stood absolutely no chance of winning the presidency -- attracted the kind of scrutiny that Paul has?