The fact of voting is if you don't select a candidate who can muster up the 270 necessary Electoral Votes, you've wasted your time and vote on what amounts to nothing. No matter how much you like a candidate or his platform, if they have no chance of winning you've accomplished as much voting for them as they have running. A complete waste of time, money, and effort.
Ron Paul is a good example of this. He has zero chance of winning. I don't care how many skewed "Straw Polls" he wins, or how much his small, narrow band of supporters cheer him on everywhere he goes, he has no chance. Soon he'll do what he's done the last 2 times he has run for President. He will fold up his tent and go home. This time a 3 time loser.
Everything everyone did for him will be a total waste, period. You can't say that about many of the other candidates, even Cain. At least at this point in time. Romney, Perry, and Cain all have a legitimate shot at it. Down the road the field will be narrowed to just a couple. Then you must vote for whoever it may be if you want rid of Hussein. It's just that simple. Ron Paul doesn't figure into the equation, and never has. That's right, never has because he has continually polled in the single digits, and always will.
Wasting time on him is a bit like someone trying to qualify a Ford F-150 into the Indy 500. They'd have every redneck in the joint cheering for them on every lap. It wouldn't matter because it would be all but guaranteed it would finish dead last, if it even made the field, which of course it wouldn't.