Oddball Republican primary candidate Ron Paul managed to do exactly what oddball candidates want to do: gain a small, determined group of followers, use media effectively to make that support look larger than it is, and try to pick up a protest vote against a controversial party front runner. And because they are the fantasist John Birch wing of the party ("wing" may be a generous term), the paranoia about the media not giving Paul enough air time kept them going through thin and very thin.
However, redistricting placed a region dominated by employees of NASA--which program he has consistently and vehemently opposed--in his district, and a serious primary challenger, Chris Peden, emerged in Texas's 14th District. Rank and file conservatives across the country, including TW2, casually hoped the good doctor might be knocked off before we reached the Republican convention. No such luck...the Paultists easily defeated Peden by something approaching 40 points. So the Crazy Right still may have a voice at the convention, sadly.
Notorious crazy person Dennis Kucinich also managed to hold off his own primary challenge against opponent Joe Cimperman in Ohio's 10th District. Having dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary race because of the challenger's success, a relieved Kucinich spoke the following words in his victory speech: "I am Napoleon. The aliens who have implanted a receiver in my brain told me this. Live long and prosper." (Not true.) He then abruptly walked off stage with the attendants his campaign pays to hold up his obligatory nutball candidate ears. (Mostly not true.)
At this point I would normally deride the state of Ohio for electing this guy, except that we are currently being governed by a Canadian beauty pageant winner named Jennifer.
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