Fortunately, Libertarianism is far more mainstream now, even if the Ron Paul movement has managed to dilute it to some extent.
I think that may be inherent to making anything more mainstream. It's useful to have people who remain attached to the core ideology of a movement, but getting things done generally requires working with other people. If the Ron Paul movement brings a bunch of people to libertarianism then other libertarians should support it, even if Ron Paul is pretty far from their idea of the ideal libertarian candidate.
I'm the creator and moderator of /r/ronpaul. In my observation, the idea of voting based on quality rather than agreement is entirely absent from larger political subreddits. People vote to promote their side and are particularly likely to vote that way in a fight that has degenerated in to name calling when the ideal situation would be downvotes for all involved.
That's part of it, but also the 'core' of most political movements tend to be whack jobs. The type of people that say "Keep the government out of my medicare!!!" are often willingness support the cause both financially and by donating their time, even if they don't actually understand what's going on. After all it's not really rational to spend but so much effort when it's unlikely that you will make any type of noticeable difference.
I think that may be inherent to making anything more mainstream. It's useful to have people who remain attached to the core ideology of a movement, but getting things done generally requires working with other people. If the Ron Paul movement brings a bunch of people to libertarianism then other libertarians should support it, even if Ron Paul is pretty far from their idea of the ideal libertarian candidate.
I'm the creator and moderator of /r/ronpaul. In my observation, the idea of voting based on quality rather than agreement is entirely absent from larger political subreddits. People vote to promote their side and are particularly likely to vote that way in a fight that has degenerated in to name calling when the ideal situation would be downvotes for all involved.