I’ve never bought into the “Progressives for Paul” myth – the idea that there was a burgeoning groundswell of support on the anti-war Left for maverick GOP congressman Ron Paul.

Gaius links to this rather silly piece saying that Paul’s “support” on the Left may be shot now that he’s “revealed” his radical small-government views.

Look, Ron Paul is a staunch decentralist, small-government libertarian (paleo division). He hasn’t exactly kept that a secret and talks about his desire to drastically reduce the size and scope of the federal government at pretty much every available opportunity.

Now, sure, some anti-war writers on the Left have given Paul some good press. And for good reason: he’s a voice of sanity in the la-la land inhabited by the rest of the GOP field. Progressives and other anti-war types ought to be glad whenever Paul gets some attention paid to his “extremist” views on foreign policy (extreme outside of the DC “bipartisan consensus” that is).

But how likely was it that lefties were ever going to vote en masse for Paul? There is a perfectly good progressive anti-war candidate running for the Democratic ticket. His name’s Dennis Kucinich. Though not exactly a progressive myself, or a registered Democrat for that matter, I think there’s a lot to like about him. And, there’s also the curmudgeonly Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson as options for the liberal anti-war voter.

Ron Paul is against the war in Iraq and our imperialist foreign policy more generally. And he’s also shares certain other positions with liberals: he’s against the drug war, for instance. And the post-9/11 expansion of the national security state. But he’s not a liberal or a progressive, and I imagine folks on the Left are smart enough to know that.