The Publisher's Lunch deal wire just lit up with word of a new Ron Paul book: a "memoir of his career in politics, revealing his encounters with the major political figures over the last thirty years, and those events that shaped him and made him the man and politician he is."

The book is hilariously titled The Revolution: A Memoir. It is a follow-up to his last one, The Revolution: A Manifesto.

Ben Greenberg at Grand Central acquired the book for a major sum—probably a good bet, however much it was, considering Manifesto was catapulted to number one on the New York Times bestseller list by the liberterian congressman's rabid (but well-organized!) disciples.

I’m noticing a pattern here: Some outfit conducts a poll, throws Bob Barr’s name into the mix, and reports back that the former Georgia congressman and current Libertarian presidential nominee is scoring somewhere in the mid-single-digits. Then, a bunch of news outlets run the same basic story about how Barr is poised to play the spoiler this year. Here are three such stories just from the past few days. Believe me, there are – and will be – plenty of others.

Maybe we need some perspective here.

Yes, it is theoretically possible that this election will come down to a handful of votes in one state, in which case the support that Barr receives – or that any other third-party candidate receives, for that matter – could theoretically swing the election.  read more »

A deluge of polls on the day before the March 4 primaries shows mixed results:   read more »

Okay, so it’s not exactly a new stump speech. Or even a speech, really. (Heck, are these people even celebrities?) In any case, this ethanol-scented clip features singer John Mayer getting into a tiff with former Mac spokesman Justin Long. Whatever about? Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, of course—a politician Mr. Mayer is game to go to the mattresses for.

Mr. Long, who has somehow leveraged his Apple gig into a real acting career, insists that he and Mr. Mayer are just loudly agreeing (“We’re saying the same thing!” he shouts), but the cuddlesome crooner doesn’t seem to see it that way. “What Ron Paul wants to do...,” he shouts over and over, before being shoved further from Mr. Long and his curiously large posse. “What about Condoleezza [Rice]?” Mr. Long then asks Mr. Mayer, while someone (also famous?) jumps on his back. “No, not [drag performer] RuPaul,” Mr. Mayer hollers back, before adding: “Ron Paul! Read the constitution.”  read more »

With Barack Obama's bandwagon picking up speed, Hillary Clinton's sympathizers have been pushing a new caricature of their opponent: the cultish figure who seduces the weak-kneed masses with vague and meaningless but oh-so-warm-feeling generalities.

"There was something just a wee bit creepy," Time's Joe Klein, a Bill and Hillary stalwart, recently wrote, "about the mass messianism…of (Obama's) Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign."  read more »

Eliot Spitzer, with family, voted early this morning at P.S. 6 on the Upper East Side, where two other voters complained that the voting machines were broken, and there was confusion as to how to fill out a paper ballot.

Elaine Mack and her husband, Stephen, told me and other reporters that they had to fill out paper ballots.

"They're antiquated," she said about filling out papper ballots, and added, "There's no privacy."  read more »

On the night of Jan. 7, NBC’s Jay Leno interviewed Republican candidate for president Ron Paul on the Tonight Show. During the course of the interview, Mr. Leno noted that Mr. Paul had recently been “screwed over” by FOX News execs, who had decided not to invite Mr. Paul to participate in the Republican Forum the night before.  read more »

It's true that Rudy Giuliani hasn't seriously contested any of the first five primary and caucus states (at least not since he dropped $2 million on television ads in New Hampshire) and that he has long touted Florida, which will vote on January 29, as his campaign's first true test.

Still, it's noteworthy just how awfully Rudy has fared in the lead-off contests. Last night, he finished with 2 percent of the vote in South Carolina, a state where he'd been running near the top of polls just a few months ago. And yesterday afternoon, he won just 1,910 votes in Nevada -- good for four percent.  read more »

Mitt Romney has won the Nevada caucuses, but it really shouldn't mean much.

He was the only candidate --besides Ron Paul -- to sink significant time and money into the state, where he enjoyed at least one built-in advantage, thanks to Nevada's sizable Mormon population.  read more »

Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who doesn't embrace the idea that the United States has an obligation to provide economic, military and diplomatic support to Israel.

This could be taken as an extension of Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy, which calls for all nations to be treated neutrally—no foreign aid and no "entangling alliances," as he frequently argues.

Paul's critics contend that his approach would expose Israel to a mortal threat from hostile neighbors. And his views have also been invoked by critics to charge that he is anti-Semitic, or, at the very least, that his campaign has become a magnet for people who hate Jews.  read more »