As nearly as we have been able to observe, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is the only presidential candidate whose campaign pronouncements do not vary depending upon his audience. This may account for the enthusiasm and steadfast devotion of his supporters. It almost certainly accounts for the fact that he has only 42 delegates and no chance at all of winning the Republican nomination. Such is the price of honesty and candor in our modern political climate.

We mention Ron Paul because he is scheduled to appear in Denton today at a “rally” that is being billed more as an opportunity for the candidate to thank his loyal North Texas supporters than as an effort to drum up votes in the March 4 primary. He will be in the Silver Eagle suite in the University of North Texas University Union between 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., and the rally is free and open to the public.

We hope he gets a big turnout. Paul may not be a front­runner — or even a runner at this point — but we are provincial enough to consider it a big deal when a presidential candidate comes to town.

Paul announced last week that he is “scaling down” his race for the GOP presidential nomination, which reflects the reality of his political situation while keeping his access to the semi-bully pulpit that even a marginal presidential candidate enjoys. He has raised an eye-popping amount of campaign money for a second- or third-tier candidate, but he probably needs to begin using it back home in the 14th Congressional District, where he is simultaneously seeking re-nomination as the GOP’s candidate for U.S. representative.

Paul is a physician by trade, a Republican by official party registration and a libertarian by gut instinct. His libertarian bent has made him one of the more interesting candidates of this political season at the same time as it has marginalized him as a viable candidate. It is to his credit that he has not backed down one whit from those libertarian principles despite the fact that some of them put him distinctly at odds with his fellow Republicans.

Libertarians drive both Democrats and Republicans nuts, or would if they were plentiful enough to have a major effect on national elections. Pure libertarians — the ones who register as Libertarians-with-a-capital-L and carry around faded photographs of Ayn Rand in their wallets — run so far to the right that they collide with the left on the far side of the political orbit. Libertarians are against big government in any of its forms, and that includes governmental bans on drugs or abortions, much to the dismay of conventional social conservatives, who don’t seem to mind big government too much as long as it advances their own agendas.

Ron Paul is the only Republican presidential candidate running as an opponent to the Iraq war. His stand against the war has both separated him from the official platform of the Republican Party and won support not only from libertarians, but from more traditional Republicans who have come to the reluctant conclusion that the whole Iraq adventure, if not wrong-headed from its very conception, has certainly reached and passed the point of diminishing returns. He said as much when America was contemplating the Iraq invasion, and he isn’t changing his position now.

We have to admire Paul’s consistency on that and other issues even as certain aspects of libertarianism remind us of the Laputans in Gulliver’s Travels, who could argue brilliantly and at length as long as the discussion was theoretical, but who were incapable of remembering not to put the bread in the bottom of the grocery sack.

Ron Paul loses us when he rails against public education or starts rambling about going back on the gold standard, but he is a fascinating candidate as well as an honest and dedicated one. He has added a lot to this presidential campaign. We welcome him to Denton and urge him to come back often.