Veta appears to have grasped (oddly enough) ... both the overall gist and finer details of what i was hoping to convey...

Maybe we should have more money in the voting, not less. Whoever gets the most money votes wins, but the losers get full refunds, and the surplus goes to the government.

I don't think a gold standard is good because the quantity of gold versus all the things it buys does not stay fixed as the economy evolves. Better to keep the fiat money we have now but make it a Constitutional right for the people to buy, sell, or hold gold if they want to.

When I meant the losers, I did not mean the losing candidates, I meant those who voted for the losing candidates.

excuse the typos from earlier, i just got back from cancun and i'm still a bit hungover.

to be honest skrum i gave your idea a bit of thought and at first i really liked the idea - after a while i realized that it would be rather impractical though (and this is after trying to realistically address all the obvious issues this would cause).

anyway, nice to be back.

Key word being "immediately". Ron Paul does not propose immediate removal of the income tax and the IRS. This platform clearly states the departments that would be removed.

As far as Ron Paul being unelectable. It's just flat out false. But it's fine; some people have a hard time telling which way the wind blows; this is life.

Anyway; have fun with your speculation. Iowa is coming up; I'll be waiting to see what happens.

Here is the graph to watch for the University of Iowa's Electronic Market for the Iowa Caucus Bond Market:

http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_IACaucus12.cfm

every republican nominee since 1980 has won the north carolina primary, if paul wins that i will give him serious attention. however most people believe he is unlikely to succeed there. it's rather hard to find data before 1980 but i believe reagan won it in 1976 but lost the nomination to ford - who was already then an incumbent.

there's a reason south carolina is known as the republican bellwether.

Many years of stock trading have taught me to not be blind to the fact that trends eventually and inevitably change.

yes, they change after dramatic upheaval. i don't think we've seen anywhere near the social unrest/upheaval necessary for a state like south carolina to no longer be the bellwether of republican nominees.

it's true ohio has correctly decided the president for the past few decades, but i'm sure that will likely change too - once the popular vote is implemented (which i might add may be as soon as 2016).

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61606.html (in case you were unaware)