From Third Party Watch’s blog of yesterday’s CPAC Conference:

One really, really interesting thing I observed was the amount of applause Romney supporters gave Ron Paul. Other than on the foreign policy issue, they were cheering as loudly as the Ron Paul supporters. The McCain supporters were not cheering, but sat with their arms crossed, for the most part. There was a battle of boos and cheers (the anti-war cheers eventually drowned out the boos) over a statement Paul made about Iraq. I suspect McCain supporters were the loudest of the opposition.

The video doesn’t depict something well that quite a few people in the media section noted. Ron Paul actually sounded like a presidential candidate. I’ve probably heard Paul speak around fifty times in my life and seen him on television many more times…

One reporter told me that Paul would have won several states already if he had been speaking like this a public events. A Romney supporter I know told me that Paul’s speech convinced him to support Paul. “I may not agree with Paul on Iraq, but saving the Republican Party is more important than that single issue,” a pregnant Romney supporter said to me. “This nomination is about turning the Republican Party back to conservative values and Ron Paul is the last candidate standing who has any.”

Although support from the MITTens is nice, I’m having trouble conceiving of a plausible Ron Paul game plan, with Paul ruling out a third-party run last night in order to keep his House seat.