Neither man has an easy or obvious path to the nomination. Both men face powerful, perhaps insuperable, opposition within the party. Paul’s path is probably even more emphatically foredoomed, but at a minimum it is surely no less foredoomed.

So why is Paul a favorite topic of media speculation, while Cruz can’t make news?

I’d offer five reasons. They’re interesting in themselves, I think, but also interesting as examples of how news organizations can systematically mis-evaluate political realities.

1. Home-Court Advantage

If you live and work in Washington, D.C., it’s easy to imagine libertarianism as a powerful national movement. Washington is home to Reason magazine and the Cato Institute, and to dozens of hard-working and talented libertarian writers, commentators, and policy analysts. It’s easy here to lose sight of the extreme marginality of the doctrine in the nation as a whole—especially because libertarianism as we see it in the capital looks a lot more like the preferred politics of the institutional media (socially permissive, fiscally cautious) than like the Lincoln-hating, bullion-believing, conspiracy-mongering politics of libertarianism beyond the Beltway at the Ron Paul Institute, Antiwar.com, or the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Journalists are consequently vulnerable to claims that libertarianism appeals to independents, Millennials, or some other demographically desirable group—no matter how overwhelmingly such claims are contradicted by the evidence. Meanwhile, the conservative Christian evangelicalism to which Ted Cruz looks for his base remains perhaps more underrepresented in D.C. media and culture than any other major American social group. D.C. journalists intellectually apprehend that evangelicals are important, but they have a hard time remembering that fact when they offer their commentary.

2. Media Management

Rand Paul courts and uses the media. That may sound like a strange thing to say after a week of testy Paul-media encounters headlined by a hostile interview with Savannah Guthrie on the Today program, but also including an angry back-and-forth with the Associated Press over abortion. No one likes to be cut off. But if you suppose journalists avoid testy politicians, you don’t understand the media business. Those were perfect interviews from a media point of view. They made news, generated clicks, got people talking, and made the Mediaite home page! What reporters hate, hate, hate are politicians who can never be pushed off their talking points, who don’t take the bait, and who make their news on non-exclusive platforms like YouTube and Facebook. That’s you we’re talking about, Senator Cruz.

3. A Different Kind of Conservative

Rand Paul has some extreme—even wacky—views on issues that media professionals tend not to understand or care about, like monetary policy, or have discounted as an inescapable feature of the American political landscape, like guns. But because Paul deviates from what’s seen as conservative orthodoxy on foreign policy, drugs, and policing, he benefits from a perception that his views are new, different, interesting, and potentially even appealing across party lines.