SALT LAKE CITY -- To Ron Paul supporters, the 2012 presidential campaign is not about an election.

They don't want another president that will happen regardless of who is elected, they want a revolution.

Not content for economic recovery only, Paul supporters want sweeping changes to core institutions, including eliminating the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education, the Department of the Interior and the National Security Administration, just to name a few.

Paul supporters believe the congressman wouldn't just win an office, he'd give them their revolution.

Revolution, by definition, is often polar opposite to the ideas of the mainstream. So it's not surprising that revolutionaries, as Paul's supporters see him, have often struggled to become popular, mainstream candidates.

As a general rule, the more a candidate wants to change, the harder it is to find supporters.

Now in his third bid for the nation's highest office, Paul knows all about the difficulties of garnering mass public support. In his first bid for president in 1988, Paul ran as the Libertarian candidate and received one half of one percent of the vote nationwide.

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Despite wild success online in the 2008 election, Paul dropped out of the Republican primaries, never able to win more than 10 percent of the vote. An October 2011 Gallup poll shows Paul currently has about eight percent of the vote leading up to the 2012 Republican primaries.

It's not that the congressman and medical doctor isn't a likable guy. His supporters are wild about him, and it's not even that people are opposed to change. It's just that Paul represents so much change.

In addition to the agencies already mentioned, Paul states on his website that he would like to abolish the Department of Commerce, HUD, the Department of Energy, all corporate subsidies, all foreign aid and all foreign wars.

If elected, Paul has committed to eliminating 10 percent of the federal workforce, roughly 200,000 jobs, cutting corporate income taxes to 15 percent and allowing young workers to opt out of Social Security and Medicare.

Paul supports ending bans on assault weapons, legalization of illicit drugs, ending birthright citizenship, legalization of prostitution, legalization of homosexual marriage and stopping the Food and Drug Administration.

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For voters, it isn't that all these changes are necessarily bad. Most everyone can find some issue where they agree with Paul. It's just hard to get the same people that want to end bans on assault weapons to also want to end foreign wars and occupations.

It's hard to get people who support ending corporate subsidies to also support cutting corporate income taxes. It's hard to convince Americans in an economy with unemployment over nine percent that it is a good idea to lay of 200,000 federal workers.

Where candidates like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry campaign on tweaking the system, Paul wants to change the system at its core, including throwing away what he considers to be the bad parts. For many Americans that kind of change means more than appealing to their long-held beliefs and values, but changing the way many of them think and believe about government as well.

Success for Paul is a tall order with only an eight-month campaign played out to the public in media sound bites and 30-second commercials.

So, for the third time in seven presidential elections, Paul is seen by the bulk of America as unelectable. Some consider him radical or extreme. Very few think he can win. Gallup reported this week than only 10 percent of republicans have a strongly favorable view of Paul, while eight percent have a strongly unfavorable view.

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In his presidential campaign to "revolution(ize)" the country, congressman and former doctor Ron Paul attempts to end wasteful spending and the choke hold the federal government has on the American people.

Compare that with frontrunner Mitt Romney, who has a 19 percent strongly favorable' ranking at a four percent strongly unfavorable rank, and it is clear that Paul has more minds to sway than he will likely be able to sway.

Paul's campaign will continue to introduce and spread the congressman's ideas. Some of his unique and original ideas may play into future policies and campaigns as propositions that have seldom before been considered, like scrapping entire departments of the federal government, get more thought and attention.

Winning isn't necessarily the point for Paul. It would take something huge, a revolution in American views on government, to propel the congressman to the top of the polls before voting begins in January.

Then again, if something revolutionary does happen, don't be surprised to see Paul involved. That is, after all, why his supporters like him.

Dallin Kimble is a graduate student of Public Administration at Arizona State University. He lives with his family in the Mesa, Arizona, area.

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