The Ron Paul Revolution

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Paul's fans — and there were more than 100 of them in Leno's audience, many of whom had flown in from out of town — are entranced by a man who responds to surprising information with "Wowee" and a jaw-dropped smile not often seen apart from 5-year-old boys and Muppets. "It's the message. Ron isn't that exciting as himself," says Andre Marrou, who was Paul's running mate when he ran as a Libertarian in 1988. "I saw him referred to in print as semi-eccentric. He's maybe 10% eccentric. It's his ideas that are eccentric. But it's basic Americanism." Paul is such a strict constructionist that he autographs pocket Constitutions more often than Tommy Lee signs breasts.

But Paul's popularity can't necessarily be explained by a previously undetected craving for gold-standard debates on college campuses. His message, even if packaged in obscure economic lectures, is that there is something very corrupt, very Halliburton-Blackwatery going on with our military-industrial complex, and that can attract some pretty weird followers. At the Iowa State event, a student stood outside in a tricornered hat and Revolutionary War–era suit, ringing a bell. Representative Tom Tancredo, another long-shot G.O.P. candidate, tells me that after a debate in New Hampshire, one of his staffers walked up to a guy in a shark costume and asked him if he was a Ron Paul supporter. "No. They're all nuts," replied the shark. "I'm just a guy in a shark suit." There is a subset of Paul supporters who believe 9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government. And there are anarchists as well: They've picked Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day, for a fund-raising drive.

"His supporters are the equivalent of crabgrass," says G.O.P. consultant Frank Luntz. "It's not the grass you want, and it spreads faster than the real stuff. They just like him because he's the most anti-Establishment of all the candidates, the most likely to look at the camera during the debates and say, 'Hey, Washington, f--- you.'"

The one place Paul hasn't become a major player is where it counts: in the polls, where he hasn't broken above 5% and has yet to pass Mike Huckabee. Paul realizes he's not a favorite among the pro-war, pro-Bush Republicans. "A lot of times at my rally, I say, 'We're diverse. We even have some Republicans,'" he jokes. (His largest Meetup.com group gathers in liberal Austin, Texas; another sizable one is in San Francisco.) And he isn't sure where all this sudden support will lead.

Paul doesn't expect that he will win the nomination, and he has no interest in running as an independent again. But he also doesn't see himself endorsing one of the other Republicans in the general election. "Those people who support me wouldn't believe it," he says. "If I said, 'Giuliani's a great guy, and he'll reduce subsidies and bring the troops home'? I couldn't do that." Even nerd revolutions don't surrender.