Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), is considering running for President (as a Republican). Paul was the Libertarian presidential candidate in 1988 and has been elected to Congress consistently since 1996 (he had also been elected in ’78, ’80, and ’82), defying the conventional wisdom that one has to vote to bring home the bacon in order to be re-elected. Paul has been an incredibly principled congressman; he’s usually the “1” in the n-1 votes. He takes the “limited” part of limited-government seriously.

I don’t know if he’ll actually make a serious run, or what kind of chances he’ll have, but I think it would be a healthy thing to have him out there expressing libertarian positions in primary debates.

The Republicans have to choose between the big-government conservativism that failed to win for them last year, and their more libertarian wing. Paul will help bring that controversy out into the open.

Even if this isn’t the year for Republicans to choose to be more like Reagan than like Bush, maybe a Paul campaign will bring that year a bit closer.