A Ron Paul rally in Chicago

Blake D. Dvorak, an assistant editor at RealClearPolitics, has a report here on a 40-minute speech our congressman, Dr. Ron Paul, gave in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency Grand Ballroom (attendance pegged at "several hundred.")

Like some other reporters we've read lately, he's struck by the diversity of the crowds that seem attracted by our Favorite Son candidate for president (and by diversity, I don't really mean mulicultural diversity in the classic daily newspaper sense.)

Here are a few of his grafs:

A man in an "Investigate 9/11" black t-shirt was walking up and down the aisles handing out fake dollar bills with Dick Cheney's face where Washington's should have been. In the corner of the bill, instead of a dollar amount, it read "9-11." Above the picture, where it should have read United States of America, it read "Unmask State Sponsored Terrorism."

I was in Ron Paul country. A strange land inhabited by 9/11 conspiracy theorists and suburban families who clothe their infant twins in "Ron Paul Revolution" pajamas; those who despise what the current administration has done in Iraq (heck, what the Woodrow Wilson administration did in Europe) and those who despise Hillary Clinton; those who live on the fringe and those who live next door.

An odd bunch, to be sure, but one that can really belt out the Star-Spangled Banner.

Other than their shared patriotism, what unites them is the man they affectionately refer to a "Dr. Paul," the long-shot libertarian Republican whose supporters clog Internet straw polls and guard their hero's image against what they see as a purposeful marginalization by the media. Maybe they have a point. The only other press I see is a local network camera crew.

At least one Ron Paul supporter took great exception to my last post about the candidate, going to the trouble to post a comment suggesting I perform a sex act on Rudolph Giuliani.

I did not post this comment as I typically don't post any comments that contain profanity and/or overtly sexual comments; there's just enough of that stuff out on the Web already, and I find it tiresome.

Still, it underscored something that's become quite evident about the Paul campaign -- some of those people are loonies.

And remember what Radiohead sang on one of their songs on the last LP -- "We don't want the loonies takin' over ...."

So I hope that doesn't happen with Doc Paul and his very noble and important campaign for the presidency.