The real Ron Paul breakthrough I’ve been waiting for is this news item in the Washington Post, which notes that Dr. No is now acting like a real candidate: that is, he’s attacking his opponents, in this case the Huckster.

Up until this point, you’ll notice, Ron has attacked ideas, but rarely mentioned specific people—and he almost never refers to his opponents by name. It’s as if he were running against the Welfare-Warfare State, and not anyone in particular. Now he’s going after Huckabee: “Apparently,” sneers the Post, “there’s only room in the Republican presidential field for one candidate who wants to abolish the IRS.” The Post political writers aren’t shy about aggressively framingreporting their “news” in a framework in which such a person as Ron Paul is unimaginable. That the Huckster wants to replace the IRS with a horribly regressive “substitute” “fair tax” seems not to make much difference to the Washington-based media elite, but never mind that. What’s interesting is that the campaign has issued “a new Ron Paul mailing in New Hampshire. The glossy flyer from the Texas congressman and maverick presidential contender does not target the two Republicans who lead in the polls there (Mitt Romney and John McCain); it instead goes after Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee, calling him a ‘habitual tax hiker.’” The piece notes Paul has been putting his internet fundraising success—some $20 million worth—to good use, “though this is the first to go negative.”

Good. It’s about time Dr. No starting going negative, i.e. started acting like a real contender, instead of a libertarian Norman Thomas. Not that there’s anything wrong with that: Thomas was an educator, not an agitator. We can’t do without the former, but we really need the latter these days, and that means going after the opposition, and that means naming names. I also note that the Post remarks on the photo in the Paul brochures, including one of the Huckster and the Slickster in unholy embrace.

Who can stop Huckabee? Paul is taking the lead, because his program is in complete opposition to everything the Huckster stands for: more taxes, more moralizing busybodies armed with the power of law, more wars in the Middle East because it says so right here in the Bible that “on a plain called Armageddon” the Final Battle will be fought. Go get him, Ron!