Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary

Rarely does a man go far in public life hawking the sort of oddities that the gadfly from Texas does. And yet, in a sense, Ron Paul is winning the 2012 Republican presidential primary.

Paul won’t be the president, or even the party nominee, but that was never his goal. He aimed to shift the debate toward his exotic economic theories, and by that standard he has prevailed.

The former obstetrician fathered the Tea Party. His son won election to the Senate. Republican leaders in Congress have joined Paul’s crusade against the Federal Reserve. And his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination are stealing his ideas.

“The success of this message,” Paul said over his bacon and eggs at Wednesday’s Christian Science Monitor-sponsored breakfast, “is way beyond my expectations. Who would’ve ever dreamed that, after 100 years, we’d be talking about the Federal Reserve at debates? I mean, this is fantastic.”