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player ready...(Dr. Paul does the Des Moines radio rounds on Thursday morning.)
by Jason George [updated Friday, 1 p.m. with campaign clarification]
DES MOINES – Rep. Ron Paul is hoping for victory at the Iowa caucuses next Thursday night, but admits it’s hard to know if his election-night support will be stronger than his single-digit poll numbers.
“The one thing that we can’t measure as well as the ordinary polls is will our people be motivated? They seem to be motivated, but will they know where to go and what to do? That’s the big question,” Paul said in a Tribune interview, in between a day of Iowa events.
“We’re doing well and we’re improving. Maybe if we had another month – who knows where we would be?”
Paul said he has marveled at the funds he’s raised this quarter – about $19 million – and his campaign is doing everything they can to turn that money into momentum on caucus night, Jan. 3.
“We’re having a lot of young people out here right now rounding up the troops and teaching about where to go and what to do.”
“We have to do our best by the day of the caucus.”
If he doesn’t do well in the early primaries, Paul said he would re-evaluate his Republican bid and the possibility of a third-party run depending on how he does in the contests on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.
“With my staff I’ve never discussed it, but I sort of have that in my mind.”
Jesse Benton, Paul’s national spokesman, told the Tribune on Friday that Paul had misheard that final question.
“He got confused – the fault is with him,” Benton said.
“Ron has no plans or intentions to run as a third-party candidate.”