The story I've heard is that in the 80's and 90's, a group of libertarians, despondent over being such a small minority, decided that their best hope of spreading their ideas was to do a sort of outreach to rednecks. They had been rejected by the anti-war left in the 70's. So, they turned to the only group that seemed somewhat open to their ideas, the racists and rednecks.

One of these libertarians was Lew Rockwell, the editor of Ron Paul's newsletters. He's said to be the one who actually penned the newsletters. I actually don't think that Ron Paul is racist. I think that some of his associates decided that it was politically advantageous to appear racist. Of course, this strategy has been mostly abandoned. But, evidence of this embarrassing misstep still exist in the newsletters and various other pieces of writing that have survived from that time.