WASHINGTON - While Texas' tough-talking governor soaks up the media spotlight, it's the cerebral Ron Paul who 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 quietly 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 - the former track runner has been rising in the polls and remains a force in the Republican race.

"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 affect on Rick Perry or any other GOP rival will carry much more weight if he can win some primaries."

That goal - winning some primaries - is a goal shared by these two very different Texans.

Paul is a soft-spoken doctor, a Pennsylvania transplant who revels in the arcane details of U.S. monetary policy. He regularly writes detailed policy papers about the need for transparency in the Federal Reserve system and waxes eloquently about the merits of the gold standard.

Perry is a hard-edged career politician born in West Texas and schooled in the rough-and-tumble of Texas politics. When he waded into the monetary policy debate this week, he described the approach of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as "almost treacherous or treasonous" and suggested that Texans might treat the Republican economist "pretty ugly" if he "prints more money between now and the election."

How different are they?

"It may surprise you: I don't know the governor," Paul told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday. "I don't recall ever having met him."

They are sure to meet soon. There are three Republican presidential debates 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 at the GOP debate last week in Ames, Iowa. "He'll just dilute all their votes."

Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, says that 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.

The 'soul' of the tea party

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

"Ron Paul could haunt Gov. Perry down the road," said Scala. "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 are 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, according to polls. Both have deep ties to the movement: Paul is credited with launching the movement when he re-enacted the original Boston Tea Party in that Massachusetts city's harbor four years ago during his 2008 presidential campaign.

"Ron Paul's candidacy acts very much as the soul of the current tea party-inspired Republican primary," said University of Texas political scientist Sean Theriault.

Crossover appeal

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 win a landslide victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary.

Yet while two Texans are battling for tea party support, most pundits believe that 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 C. Edwards III, a political science professor at Texas A&M University.

Presidential scholars say Perry's best strategy would be to avoid engaging with Paul. The reason: he risks a confrontation that would elevate Paul to the top-tier stature Perry now has and could provoke a YouTube moment that Perry later regrets.

"Perry should ignore him," advised Merle Black, a Emory University political scientist.

Thus far, Perry is doing that. And so is much of the national media. Political commentator Jon Stewart took the television networks to task this week for covering Paul less than every other major candidate, despite his straw poll finish and four recent national polls showing him in a virtual tie for third with Bachmann behind Perry and early front-runner Mitt Romney.

"How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?" Stewart asked on his Comedy Central show.

richard.dunham@chron.com