Prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan endorses Ron Paul

Prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan announced Wednesday that he would endorse libertarian Ron Paul for the GOP nomination, scoring the Texas congressman an unconventional advocate for his steadily improving campaign.

"I feel the same way about him on the right in 2012 as I did about Obama in 2008. Both were regarded as having zero chance of being elected. And around now, people decided: Why not? And a movement was born," Sullivan writes on his blog for the Daily Beast.

Sullivan, who describes himself as conservative and emphasizes his support for a flat tax, privatization of Social Security, and deficit reduction, supported President Barack Obama in 2008. Critics from the right have argued his support for gay marriage (Sullivan himself is gay) and criticism of Bush-era interrogation techniques betray liberal sensibilities.

But Sullivan argued in his endorsement that his unconventional politics were emblematic of a changing political culture.

"I am, like many others these days, politically homeless," Sullivan writes. "A moderate, restrained limited government conservatism that seeks to amend, not to revolt, to reform, not to revolutionize, is unavailable."

And while Sullivan says he does not support "many of his nuttier policy proposals," he sees Paul's libertarianism an important counterweight in conservative politics.

"Breaking the grip of neoconservative belligerence on conservative thought and the Republican party could make space again for more reasoned and seasoned managers of foreign policy," Sullivan writes. "Embracing the diversity of a multi-cultural, multi-faith America is incompatible with Christianism and the ugly anti-illegal immigrant fervor among the Republican base. But it is perfectly compatible with a modest, humble libertarianism that allows a society to find its own way, without constant meddling and intervention in people's lives."

Paul is running second in a PPP poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers released Tuesday, just one percentage point behind leader Newt Gingrich.

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