Election 2012: Barack Obama 42%, Ron Paul 41%

Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is – virtually dead even.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Ask the Political Class, though, and it’s a blowout. While 58% of Mainstream voters favor Paul, 95% of the Political Class vote for Obama.

But Republican voters also have decidedly mixed feelings about Paul, who has been an outspoken critic of the party establishment.

Obama earns 79% support from Democrats, but Paul gets just 66% of GOP votes. Voters not affiliated with either major party give Paul a 47% to 28% edge over the president.

Paul, an anti-big government libertarian who engenders unusually strong feelings among his supporters, was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. But he continues to have a solid following, especially in the growing Tea Party movement.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2012/election_2012_barack_obama_42_ron_paul_41

It's nice to see Ron Paul gaining more momentum and hopefully he'll run again. That is, if the Republicans grow some brains and nominate him this time.

The biggest challenge facing Ron Paul for a 2012 election is his age, I personally doubt he'll get elected. He'll by 76 by the time the 2012 election rolls around. For the record, Reagan was the oldest elected president at 69 years old.

This is why I was praying people would start noticing Ron Paul in 2007/2008, because he was already 72.

Never say never,lol. Very true though, his age would be a concern, but due to his idealism there is a possibility that people will elect him, and if not there is always his son Rand Paul who shares his views and will hopefully win in Kentucky.

Yeah, age is a worry for me with Ron. He would be a 1-termer, which wouldn't be enough, IMO.

2012 is a difficult year for picking a GOP president, because the field isn't maturated enough (for me) to have a really good standout guy that I could say 'that's him!' to. Now, 2016 is different, because Ryan Paul would easily be my favorite, but I don't know if he has enough experience to make a real 2012 run.

Ron Paul is a very healthy man. Being a doctor helps :)

But his biggest problem getting elected, has little to do with age. The problem, is he makes the right calls. The right calls are political suicide.

Yes, the National Education System sucks, and the best way to help our kids learn, is to get rid of it, but for the masses that just sounds like crazy talk.

I totally agree with this.  I'm pretty sure the USA will have a female president before another white male in his late 60's gets elected.

I hope after this failed experiment, the next person gets elected due to qualifications. I don't care about there age, sex, or race.

Just hire someone who knows what the hell they are doing. If that happens to be a white man in his 60's or 70's, so be it.

Well its been almost 30 years the last time it happened I just don't see it happening again anytime in the near future.

I wouldn’t say that he always makes the right calls because (at times) I believe his suggestions end up being a little too extreme; and it is likely that they would resolve existing problems by introducing new problems. With that said, I think Ron Paul is a smart enough person to understand the political and practical problems with governing from an ideological standpoint; and even if he did, the US has moved to such a centralized-authoritarian extreme that it would take 4 or 8 terms to really get into a position where it could cause problems.

Anyways, I personally don’t expect many of the talked about candidates to actually enter into or win the primaries; and the political power they’re building today will most likely be used to frame the debate of the next presidential election. While I don’t think that it is (necessarily) a great comparison, I think that people like Sarah Palin and Ron Paul are going to position themselves as ‘King Makers’ as are often seen in parliamentary systems; essentially people who campaign and (often) run for leadership with little opportunity to win in exchange for determining policy directions and powerful positions in the government.

I'm not really sure that's more momentum, since your just excluding any Republican from said race.

I'd probably vote for him, if only because I think all of our laws need to be tore down to be built back up.

All we are doing is patching holes in a leaky ship that's had so many changed done to it, it's just a patchwork of randomness that doesn't really sale right.

We just need a new boat.