^
There's my assessment, Darwyn.
Or a large part of it.
Other parts include:
-Lack of media attention (Sorry, but like it or not, in American politics, if you're not a Red or Blue, you tend to get less air-time,and for the common, who is, to dig up H.L. Mencken for the only quote I seem to use from him, "a fool," is NOT going to read up on RP in an age of Blackberries and iPhones and Androids and 24/7 FOX vs. MSNBC vs. CNN news...RP doesn't get as much time as the second-tier candidates of the Big Parties, even, and so is relegated to obscurity inthe minds of most.)
-He's lost before, and carries that stigma (There was a time the US citizenry would've voted in a loser of a previous election; not now, with the huge influx of new candidates ever 4 years and the mdeia speculation fueling it all...fair or not, RP carries the stigma of the Buffalo Bills, ie, the Team/Guy Who Couldn't Win The Big One...and few will vote for that when the media and word of mouth focuses so much on new up-and-comers and big-names making their push...RP would have to do something EXTRAORDINARY to gain the momentum to run in the mainstream consciousness again without that stigma...the only candidate to have lost recently who I could POSSIBLY see running again and winning isn Hillary, for the dual reasons that she'sbeen a pretty publicly-seen and effective Secretary of State--arguably more effective than Obama--and that she's a woman, and so the idea of a First Woman President has a HUGE boost to it.)
-It's A Two-Party System (Well, it's NOT, obviously, but in the minds of many, maybe most common voters, it is...THEY'RE used to Red vs. Blue, very simple, two choicese, pick one; this isn't 1912 where Teddy Roosevelt came within a split party of winning again--how muight THAT have changed things, TR in office at the start of WWI rather than Wilson?!--and no 3rd candidate before or since has comeso close...Perot wasat least somewhat notable, but even then, not nearly enough so to sniff victory.)
-3rd Party Candidate (Again, that carries a stigma that he's not inthe "Big Parties,"and thus he appears to too many asa "fringe" choice, fairly or not)
-War Chest (However rih the man and his donors might be, he cannot out-spend or out-muscle even ONE of the Big Parties, let alone two...and it all, in the end, in war, politics, show business...it all comes back tomoney in a capitalist society, and you needto pay to play--the highest roller doesn't ALWAYS win out, but he doesn't need to be the highest roller, because he has a whole PArty Machinebehind him raising hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.)
-Lack of Name "Sexiness" (Odd way of putting it, but it IS true that msot will be far more likely to vote for a Kennedy--if one was running--or a Palin than a "Joe Smith," or a "Bob Johnson," and so on...fair or not, name brand matters in America, and where Obama's name sparked controversy, it DID catch on...and that controversy,in time, fueled more air-time, and so he got mor attention...and look who won the most modern-media-crazed election in history. "Ron Paul" isn't a name that sounds authorative or Presidential...or even stands out from the pack.)
-Life story (McCain was a war hero, Obama was the first big black candidate...Kennedy a Catholic...Reagan a movie star...what does RP have to compare with that? A leader needs a mythos to get elected today...)
Need a sitter again
scored, two great QBs...and it came down to the final play of the game! (Though, seriously...WHY RUN IT THERE?!)
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