Would more GOP candidates hurt or harm Paul?

[The New Fury]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61515.html

"There still may be room for Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani."

Suppose a few more jumped in. Would this help Paul by spreading the votes and lessoning the margins between him and higher polling candidates, or would a sizable group of people who voted for Paul in polls likely switch to one of these candidates?

[LatinsforPaul]

Help, the more Neocons the merrier. ;)

[brushfire]

Depends on who has hard and soft support. I think that RP has the most steadfast supporters because there is the least amount of overlap.

The other candidates overlap on everything but gender, weight, and height...

[PastaRocket848]

Paul Ryan is hinting he'll join the race soon. I don't worry...

[erowe1]

In the short term they help.

But don't let it give you any false hope. For RP to win the nomination he can't just squeak by with a small plurality of primary and caucus votes, he needs to dominate them.

We have to assume that if RP is one of the top two after the four early states, then it will be just him versus one candidate with the backing of the entire establishment for the rest of the way to the convention.

[belian78]

It's another tactic of the establishment to be sure, and I don't think it helps at all. There's two things that happen with all these people joining the race. One, it buddies the waters even further, and has the net effect of lowering Ron's poll numbers. (Granted they do everyone else's too, but that will be less significant in the grand scheme) Two, the timing will be set perfectly to stay off any huge momentum shifts Ron may start to build. We've already seen it work, as each new 'it guy/girl' announces they get a big bump in polls and eventually fizzle, but it keeps the majority of undecided voters up in the air and not settled on any one candidate.

[Thomas]

it depends who, run rudy run!