Last year, I wrote a cover story about Bruce Bartlett's being fired from the North Dallas-based right-wing think tank National Center for Policy Analysis for branding George Dubya as a traitorously crazy-big spender. Bartlett's first real job in politics was 31 years ago, when he became a legislative assistant for Congressman Ron Paul, who reps the state's 14th Congressional District and is, of course, running for president. Matter of fact, he was on Bill Maher's HBO show last Friday, plugging his common-sense, hands-off, anti-war platform...or was that Maher's other guest, Ben Affleck?

Barlett today published a piece in which he says that the sole Texan running for president has gone from being the Don Quixote candidate to someone who "may end up playing a role not dissimilar to that played by Eugene McCarthy in the Democratic nominating process in 1968." Dunno about that, but I did see someone this weekend with about 20 Ron Paul for Prez stickers on the back of their Pacer (or Gremlin, not sure), covering up their red "Kinky Friedman: Why the Hell Not?" bumper stickers. So he's got that going for him, which is nice. --Robert Wilonsky

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