It146;s Independents146; Day

Whatever Hollywood says a presidential candidate is supposed to look like, Ron Paul isn't it. At 72, wearing mall walking...

Whatever Hollywood says a presidential candidate is supposed to look like, Ron Paul isn8217;t it. At 72, wearing mall walking shoes and an inquisitive smile, he looks like a retired obstetrician, which he is.

His platform is hardly from central casting, either. He not only wants US troops home from Iraq, he wants them home from the rest of the planet. He wants to abolish an alphabet of federal agencies and the income tax, dismantle the Patriot Act, reconnect the dollar to the price of gold, decriminalise prostitution and call an end to the drug war.

Seated in the House Speaker8217;s Lobby, he speaks matter-of-factly, like a doctor describing an easy delivery. 8220;This is my freedom message,8221; says the Texas representative. 8220;People have to be left alone.8221;

Much of the world dismisses Paul as a libertarian crank. But mainstream candidates from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have good reason to watch him. That reason8217;s called the New Hampshire primary.

Always unpredictable 8212;there8217;s not even a date set for it yet 8212; the primary is more mysterious now because a record 44 percent of voters have registered 8220;undeclared8221;. Suspicious of established politics, with an antiwar sentiment stretching back to Vietnam, they decide at the last minute. Since they can vote in either party8217;s race, their migrations choose the outcome in both.

In 2000, two thirds asked for GOP ballots, boosting John McCain and dooming Bill Bradley, who was going after the same voters.

This time, Obama, Giuliani and McCain are the big names fishing in the sea of independents. But conditions have changed: it8217;s expected that two thirds of those voters will take part in the Democratic contest, which could be Obama8217;s main, or last, chance. His yearning to change a 8220;broken political system8221; is a good hook, but only if he can convince voters he has the guts and skill to do it. He has work to do: a recent Marist College poll shows Clinton leading him among independents 38 to 29 percent. A hot Democratic race would be bad for McCain and Giuliani, whose appeal rests in part on their perceived distance from GOP orthodoxy.

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The arithmetic of the undeclared is one reason Romney is sprinting to the right and why Mike Huckabee is getting a look in the state.

As George W Bush8217;s Republican coalition falls apart, its rougher edges become more visible and Paul8217;s small-government, isolationist message gets heard. .

For now, Paul is a blip on New Hampshire8217;s radar; in a recent poll, he stood at 5 percent among independents. But that could change. He8217;s banked more than 5 million, recently raised more in the state than most other candidates, has a huge web presence and just bought 1.1 million in New Hampshire TV ads.