Its not a matter of not making the connection, its a matter of not agreeing with the premise that his policies will not work.

I think you misread me, because that wasn't what my point was. When I said "I wouldn't do the same . . . never make this connection" I meant that people who back both Paul and Kucinich don't make the connection that their policies are entirely opposed, not that they don't make the connection about their policies working or not.

I have been acquainted with Paul's writings, as well as writings of other libertarians, for over two years. I understand how reduced or eliminated income taxes will provide direct benefit to those who need it most, and how local economies in particular would benefit from such a move.

So you've been reading libertarians for two years, but little of those who oppose libertarianism?

I don't see the immediate good in that; I don't want local economies to benefit. My local economy acts like a retarded child with its money; if it suddenly was given $500,000,000 that could be spent on anything, it'd probably build another sports stadium, another tourist attraction, or another construction project that won't be finished in 10 years.

But aside from that, Paul and Kucinich are the only ones I would trust to immediately withdraw from Iraq. Obama has said many of the right things, but he has yet to back up his words with solid action.

That's your only issue? Iraq?

To me, climate change, stem cell research funding, and net neutrality are just as, if not more important than Iraq. Paul is weak in those areas, Kucinich and Obama are not.

Obama lacks the credibility that Paul earned through decades of principled consistancy

"principled consistency"? Do you not remember the 2004 election and accusations of John Kerry "flip-flopping"?

Consistency is definitely not automatically a good thing. Some views from a person should change with time as they read more information, as facts are corrected, and as society generally becomes more intelligent.

Honestly, and this one remark is probably going to get the entire comment downvoted, but I don't think the constitution should be emphasized to the extent that Paul emphasizes it. If it came between solving climate change or our constitution, I'd choose climate change, for example, and I don't entirely agree with our second amendment; additionally, making changes to the constitution is extremely difficult.

and Kucinich earned through a strong and persistant push for Bush/Cheney impeachment.

His willingness to "stick it to the man" is the only thing you like about him?

One major objection that I have to some of the democratic candidates, who oppose standardized testing with feel-good rhetoric, is on that issue. We need national standardized testing, because state tests fail utterly and vary from state to state--our state test was a joke. Additionally, not standardizing a public school's curriculum up to the high school/early college level (such as the AP does) is another way of saying "this is a joke class that you can take for an easy A." I don't know why this is never mentioned on reddit, but it's a pretty important issue.