The Politico is out today with an article that suggests its the latter:

Ask a random Paul supporter why she’s willing to spend time and money on this particular candidate. Odds are, she’ll argue that Paul is that rare man of principle — the full-color version of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” That’s far from the whole story. Yes, Paul is more principled than most politicians. He seems to really believe in his small-government message. He’s also a 10-term congressman who has beat long odds. Paul won three elections as a nonincumbent, twice knocking off sitting congressmen. Protest candidacies are fun but fleeting; to hold a seat, you have to convince voters you’re doing something for them. So Paul put together a staff that is known for its robust constituent service. Paul wants to abolish Social Security, but retirees in his district whose monthly checks go missing know that they should call their congressman’s office. Paul also votes against most spending bills but makes earmark requests, which are occasionally awarded. His supporters can try to explain away items such as the earmarks by saying that is the unfortunate price of doing business in Washington. That may be true, but it’s a price Paul has been willing to pay.

To be fair, as a Congressman, it doesn’t seem like Ron Paul has come anywhere close to Pork Kings like Don Young of Alaska or Robert Byrd of West Virginia. And there is, I think, a difference between assisting constituents in obtaining government benefits to which they are legally entitled under existing law, and using your power in Congress to send federal money to favored contributors. While Congressman Paul has clearly done the first, as any good Congressman should, I don’t think there’s any real evidence that he’s done the second.

But the point the article makes here is that Ron Paul has been a much more effective politician than he’s been given credit for up until now. The fact that he has been elected as a non-incumbent three times, and knocked off a sitting incumbent twice, should be evidence of that. He’s built up alot of good will among the people of his district, and that has helped him election after election.

The article goes on:

Paul approaches domestic politics with a mix of William Wallace-like rhetoric and more pedestrian considerations. In theory, he wants a government the size of a lima bean. In practice, he would meet entitlement obligations for old folks while telling kids that they’ll have to pay their own way. He says that he’d like to scrap the Internal Revenue Service and “replace it with nothing” (to wild cheers from the crowds) but that he could live with a national sales tax. Normally a consistent federalist, Paul voted for a national ban on late-term abortions. Paul may be wrong — rhetorically or programmatically — about a whole number of issues, but he’s not nuts. He also has a better knowledge of practical politics than he would ever like to let on.

Whether that will be enough to make a big impact on the national stage is still an open question. It is clearly going to be an uphill battle for him to even be considered among the top-tier GOP candidates notwithstanding this week’s fundraising numbers.

The other interesting thing to note, of course, is that the dismissive coverage of the Paul campaign from the media is coming to an end. At least for the moment, they are covering him seriously. Let’s see what comes of that.