Many Religious Right candidates find themselves as front runners for national office.  What makes some observers scratch their heads is the fact that that these types have spent a lifetime spewing anti-government sentiment.  Now they find themselves headed toward leading an organization they have held in such disgust.
Pat Robertson comes to mind with his conspiracy theory in New World Order.  Robertson virtually designated every government agency as bent toward destruction of the nation.  Jerry Falwell's long tradition of bashing the state as a demonic organization riddled with conspiracy found him in strange company when he was asked to help pick the Vice President.

Ron Paul has turned anti-government theories into a cottage industry.  Now some propose to allow him to lead an institution he so despised.  It is the old right wing Republican problem of denouncing government as the problem and then proposing to lead something you do not like.  I still have in my files Paul's support of school vouchers.  It was based on the idea that Paul did not even like the idea of public education.

Mike Lofgren, a former GOP leader, laments the fact that now "The Congressional Directory reads like a casebook of lunacy." He claimed it was more like an "apocalyptic cult."

Our regional Congressman, Louie Gohmert, from Lufkin, went to the floor of the U.S. Congress saying there was a secret plot to bring pregnant Muslim women into the country to deliver terrorist babies.  The Southern Poverty Law Center commented on this theory noting Louie had no evidence for such.

Ron Paul, according to Reuters, is linked to letters advising followers of conspiracies to cover up AIDS, promote the Israel lobby and financial plots to disrupt the economy.  Here is a candidate who allowed his name to be used to state that American money had traces of metal used to spy on U.S. citizens to keep track of them.  www.newsone.com in May noted that Ron Paul supports and defends the John  Birch Society as a lifetime supporter.  Paul does not even believe the Civil War was a just war.  Paul's view of the world fits the JBS conspiracy model to the T.

How Religious Right backers will support Paul's libertine views will be interesting to say the least.  He supports getting the government out of prohibition of narcotics and vice.  Libertine Paul does not believe in government anything.  I am not sure he supports the idea of public highways.  He has links to Christian Reconstruction which believes the only legitimate government organization is the local sheriff.  The Oklahoma Observer noted that Paul wasn't joking in his debate about allowing nature to take its course on government supported health care.  Paul's former campaign leader, Kent Snyder died from complications of pneumonia.  He did not have health insurance nor did he have the funds to get treatment.  Dr. Paul saw this as just allowing the free market to take its course.

A lot of observers have given Paul a free ride because he has opposed the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.  His family values platform is also attractive to Libertarians who decry government at just about any intersection of the neighborhood.  His ideas on federal regulations on business, the environment and radical reduction of taxes appeals to some.  Just exactly how someone who has made a living bashing the federal government could actually lead it is at least, interesting. Finding fundamentalist pastors to support a candidate who wants to legalize prostitution and heroin might be hard to do.