Not to minimize the not unimportant differences between Romney and Obama, but it’s hard to ignore Taibbi’s complaint about their similarities when it comes to treatment of the financier class:
Most likely, it’ll be Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama, meaning the voters’ choices in the midst of a massive global economic crisis brought on in large part by corruption in the financial services industry will be a private equity parasite who has been a lifelong champion of the Gordon Gekko Greed-is-Good ethos (Romney), versus a paper progressive who in 2008 took, by himself, more money from Wall Street than any two previous presidential candidates, and in the four years since has showered Wall Street with bailouts while failing to push even one successful corruption prosecution (Obama).
Taibbi suggests that, should Ron Paul make a significant showing going forward, the money will come together pretty quickly to submarine his campaign and disappear him in much the same way as was done to Howard Dean back in 2004.
The difference being that Dean was serious about governing. Paul just wants to chase race-war conspiracy theories for 4 years.