ANKENY, IOWA — Prepare yourself for a shock: Ron Paul supporters gathered at his caucus results party just outside Des Moines here Tuesday were unfazed by this third-place finish here.
Most of them that I talked to here tonight don’t care how the Republican nomination fight ends for Paul, actually. They’ll either vote for him as a third party candidate or, if he doesn’t give them the chance, they’ll write him in.
The lone voice of dissension was Paul supporter from California, who’d driven a friend to Iowa this week. As I wandered through the crowded ballroom right after Paul’s speech, he told me that Paul has tried it as a third party candidate once and failed, and he needs to stay “Republican all the way.”
He didn’t caucus in Iowa tonight. Those that did had a different — and more predictably Paulian — view.
“I was registered independent before tonight,” said Anthony Kugel, a college-age first-time caucus-goer who stood near the front of the crowded hotel ballroom. “I mean I’m definitely conservative but I’m not really satisfied by any of the other candidates. I wasn’t really satisfied by Bush either. I’m definitely a Paul person.”
So what happens if Paul’s third-place finish here plays out across the country and Paul doesn’t get the nomination?
“Probably write him in,” Kugel said.
This was a common refrain. The Iowans told me they couldn’t think of a single thing Paul could have done differently to change tonight’s result. Most of them still held out hope that Paul’s final vote tally would rise as the results came in and he would win (he didn’t.) But they spoke of the primary process as just one path to an eventual Paul presidency, and swore his party allegiance didn’t matter.
“I don’t care about Republican, I don’t care about Democrat,” said Gabe Lanz, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran and Des Moines caucus-goer who was Paul’s caucus director in Polk County’s 7th precinct. “Ron Paul’s the man this country needs and I don’t ever vote on based on party, I vote based on my own opinion, who I decide is best…I will not vote for the lesser of two evils.”
Paul gets a write-in from Lanz, too. Same goes for his wife, Tasha, who stood next to him with an ardent Paul volunteer from St. Louis as the ballroom cleared out.
“Ron Paul no matter what,” she said.