Originally uploaded by pruffini.

This map was created by Patrick Ruffini to track the geographical spread of Ron Paul support on a “donor per capita” basis. Ruffini explains at techPresident.¹

Meanwhile, in other news about ‘minor’ candidates (and I mean that as a compliment, given what the majors have been up to, though as I allude to in the footnotes, a couple of the minors have been up to some not-so-good things themselves)…

Tom Tancredo (R) apparently has dropped out.²

Cynthia McKinney (G) has gotten in.³

Dennis Kucinich (D) has a personal loss: His 52-year-old brother was found dead.⁴

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1. I found the link on the Ron Paul map at Outside the Beltway, to which I was referred by PoliBlog. [↩]
2. He was the leading nativist/Know-Nothing running in the Republican primary, though he did note in one of the so-called debates that he could perhaps claim credit for making the field more nativist. He remarked that some his intraparty rivals were trying to “out Tancredo Tancredo.”

   As I said in a comment at PoliBlog (the item in the main text above):

   I loathe Tom Tancredo and everything he stands for. Yet I am sorry to see him leave the race. I tend to think more candidates (better yet, more parties) are better than fewer. (Sure, there could be an upper limit, but it would well north of where we are.) And when candidates drop out before a single vote has been cast, democracy is weakened.

   [↩]

3. As a member of Congress–she was defeated for the Democratic nomination in the 2006 primary–she championed electoral reform. She is also the only Green pre-candidate so far that I am aware of with national electoral experience. On the other hand, she has her fair share of baggage in terms of past remarks and associations. Not the same as those of some of Paul’s current contributors (see the OTB link in the first footnote), but just as extreme and ugly. This is the sort of thing that, unfortunately, happens to alternative candidates and parties under our restrictive electoral system and ballot-access and campaign-finance systems. It is hard to be anything but “fringe” when the campaign vehicles in question have no realistic chance of access to representation. [↩]
4. How horrible. Kucinich is my favorite Democratic candidate, thought that is saying little. (If only others in the field would–and could–out Kucinich Kucinich!) I also like Mike Gravel and, on some issues, Bill Richardson.

   I recently learned that Kucinich was in Fallbrook as part of a panel to look into the local response to the wildfires in October. Interesting, in that the only other members of this panel were Representatives Darrell Issa and Brian Bilbray, both local and both Republicans–not the company I normally would expect the left-libertarian anti-war Democrat from Ohio to keep. [↩]