By Washington’s Blog

While mainstream pundits desperately cling to their mantra that Ron Paul is “unelectable”, the numbers show a different story.

Gallup finds a record high-high 40% of all Americans now identify as independents. This is higher than the 31% of Americans who identify as Democrats and 27% as Republicans.

And which candidate do independents like?

According to a new CBS poll, they like Ron Paul.

As Forbes notes:

In a head to head match up with incumbent President Barack Obama, the indie voter chooses Ron Paul, a CBS News poll suggested on Monday. A total of 47% of independent voters said they would choose Ron Paul compared to 45% of independent voters choosing Mitt Romney against Obama, and 41% of independents saying they would choose Rick Santorum. If a Paul-Obama showdown were ever to take place, 47% of independent voters would vote for Paul, 81% republicans and 10% Democrats for a total of 45% of the vote. Obama would get just 40% of the independent vote in that contest, with 85% of the Democrats choosing Obama and 9% of Republicans choosing the President on election day in November.

Admittedly, Forbes notes that – if the general election were held today – Romney could beat Obama, and Paul couldn’t:

Obama would win the general election by a narrow one point margin if the election was held today between the two. However, Ron Paul is not the favorite among conservatives polled. Romney is the leader there, getting 90% of the conservative vote, followed by Texas governor Rick Perry at 85%. Ron Paul comes in tied with Newt Gingrich at No. 4 with 81% of conservatives voting for that particular candidate. Romney is the only GOP candidate seen beating Obama in November by a two point margin, according to the poll. Paul is in second.

However, given that the CBS poll has a 3% margin of error, Romney and Paul are statistically tied in a match-up against Obama.

And Romney’s Gordon Gekko background is just starting to get air time in this campaign. And watch this short video.

And while I don’t believe that anyone should be discriminated against based upon their religion, the more protestants learn that Romney is a Mormon, the less they like him.

So – despite the mainstream’s attempts to sideline Paul as “unelectable” – I think that once the facts are aired, Paul would do better against Obama than Romney.