WASHINGTON — While Texas' governor soaks up the media spotlight, Ron Paul plugs away as the outsiders' outsider in the 2012 presidential campaign.

The 75-year-old congressman from Lake Jackson with the message of less government and more liberty has built the largest grass-roots network in the Republican field, far larger than the team thus far assembled by his home state's governor.

And it was the libertarian and third-time presidential contender who finished just 1 percentage point behind winner Michele Bachmann in Iowa's Republican straw poll.

Although he gets precious little attention on the TV news networks — and is dismissed by the Pundit Elite as a libertarian “niche” candidate without broad appeal — he has been rising in the polls.

“Ron Paul's domestic policy views resonate with a growing faction in the GOP,” said Jim Granato, director of the Hobby Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston. “But his effect on Rick Perry or any other GOP rival will carry much more weight if he can win some primaries.”

Paul revels in the arcane details of U.S. monetary policy.

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He regularly writes detailed policy papers about the need for transparency in the Federal Reserve system and waxes eloquent about the merits of the gold standard.

When Perry recently waded into the monetary policy debate he described the approach of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as “almost treacherous or treasonous” and suggested Texans might treat the Republican economist “pretty ugly” if he “prints more money between now and the election.”

How different are the two Texas candidates?

“It may surprise you: I don't know the governor,” Paul told CNN. “I don't recall ever having met him.”

They're sure to meet soon. Three Republican presidential debates are scheduled in the next month, and Paul has his sights set on Perry.

“I'm very pleased that he's coming in because he represents the status quo,” Paul said. “He'll just dilute all their votes.”

Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, says Paul sees Perry as “inauthentic, especially on the issues he holds dear, such as the Federal Reserve.” To the congressman, Perry is “something of a Johnny-come-lately to the cause.”

Paul said as much at a campaign stop Wednesday in Concord, N.H.

“Now they have this other governor, I can't remember his name,” Paul jabbed. “He realizes that talking about the Fed is good, too. But I'll tell you what: He makes me sound like a moderate.”

Those comments could just be a taste of things to come.

For his part, Perry has had little to say about Paul, at least publicly.

“Ron Paul could haunt Gov. Perry down the road,” Scala said. “He seems very enthusiastic about needling his fellow Texan already. I could imagine him goading Perry in a nationally televised debate.”

Paul has good reason to engage with Perry. They're both seeking to win votes from the tea party wing of the Republican Party, which represents a majority of GOP primary voters in some states.

Both have deep ties to the movement: Paul is credited with launching it when he re-enacted the original Boston Tea Party in that city's harbor four years ago during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Perry is an early tea party loyalist, too. He took part in the group's first wave of national protests on April 15, 2009, when he uttered his now-famous comments suggesting that Texas could secede from the Union. Tea party support helped him beat U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary.

Most pundits believe Paul has less potential for crossover appeal to establishment Republicans.

“I don't think many people listen to Ron Paul outside the libertarian fringe,” said George Edwards, a political science professor at Texas A&M University.