CNN's Ron Paul Strategy?

[Spirit of '76]

Here's a thought that just occurred to me after looking at how CNN has normally been treating Ron lately vs. how they ambushed him last night.

I think they're playing him up when their normal, more liberal and democratic viewers are watching, then when Republicans are watching for things like the debate, working to tear him down.

The goal? They want to prevent him from getting the Republican nomination, yet still build up his base of support and push him toward an independent run in order to split the vote and ensure a Clinton victory.

Am I onto something, or am I being a kooky conspiracy theorist? ;)

What say ye?

[derdy]

My own analysis of the situation is:

Ron Paul started out in the first debate talking about things no one else was talking about: Eliminating the IRS, the inflation tax, the national debt, the economy, the Constitution, spending, etc.

This resonated with people as it should, these are very important issues, and it got the other candidates talking about it.

The format of this last debate gave CNN the opportunity to allow the users to submit questions on these critical issues, but to let only the candidates that weren't talking about it in the first place respond to them! Thereby, they totally hijacked his message.

I don't think they're trying to push him independent, maybe they are, but if they do he'll still win.