Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee thinks supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R) should line up behind presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, despite the treatment they received during this year’s primary season.

“I don’t think they’ve been disrespected,” Huckabee told reporters in Tampa on Monday. “Elections are about — you get numbers. I lost four years ago, and I didn’t feel disrespected as much as I felt defeated. You have to accept that the voters make a choice and the voters made a choice.”

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The Republican Convention offered Paul a speaking slot at the Republican Convention if he agreed to let the Romney campaign vet his speech and if he endorsed Romney for president. He refused.

Paul has gained an active and enthusiastic following for his strong views on limited government, free market economics and non-interventionist foreign policy. In the 2008 Republican presidential primary, his views made him a clear outlier, but much of his economic rhetoric has now been adopted by mainstream Republicans.

Still, many feel the Republican Party has been trying to unfairly shut out Paul along with his libertarian, anti-war views. Paul’s supporters have complained that the Republican establishment enacted new rules this year during the primary race to keep them out of the Republican National Convention.

Mike Franklin, a Paul supporter, told AFP that Romney’s upcoming nomination was a “scam,” adding that it was “stupid to expect that this jackass is going to beat Obama.”