First, we note that Paul won the straw poll conducted at conservative activist Chuck Muth’s Conservative Leadership Conference up in Reno last week, despite the actual, physical presence of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

To us, this is no mystery: Paul has espoused true conservative principles for years, and has not changed from the days when he was running for president on the Libertarian ticket. (For the record, we were one of the 431,750 votes cast for Paul in the 1988 presidential election; ah, our misspent youth.)

Romney, by contrast, has espoused pretty much every principle during his political career, depending many times on who he’s talking to at the time. (And sometimes, he says just plain silly things, like how he’s against medical marijuana because it’s a "Trojan horse" to legalizing marijuana outright.) Paul, by contrast, has long advocated legalizing marijuana because the government doesn’t have the right to tell us what we can put into our bodies. (Hey, Mitt: That’s a little thing called "principle." Look it up.)

Or how about the contrast between Romney — who said at the most recent Republican presidential debate that he’d consult his lawyers about attacking Iran — and Paul, who correctly reminded his fellow Republicans that the Constitution prohibits engaging in war against another country without Congress passing a declaration of war. (We won’t even touch Paul’s superior debate with former New York Mayor and authoritarian Rudy Giuliani.)

Having said all that, it’s important to realize that Tucker Carlson was right on last week’s edition of Real Time with Bill Maher when he said that liberals who love Paul should take a closer look. Sure, Paul’s against some things liberals are against: the drug war, foreign military adventures, government spying on citizens. But he’s also against lots of things liberals are for, like Medicare, Social Security, job-creating infrastructure projects, etc. They call Paul, an OB/GYN by training, "Dr. No" for a reason. (By the way, we promise that’s the last time you’ll see us write that the obnoxious Carlson was right about anything.)

We at Various Things & Stuff admire him because he’s got a consistent philosophy, he doesn’t stray from it and he makes more sense than the rest of the R-tards on stage when they debate. And, we note, the Las Vegas Sun wrote a nice piece about Paul recently, too. So check that out for more.