Born a citizen. Ok, then you likely know we aren't a two-party system. If enough people funded and voted for a 3rd party their candidate would be put on the ballot in the general election. That doesn't happen because not enough people support a 3rd party candidacy or percieve that a 3rd party candidate will just siphon votes and throw the election to one of the other two parties. Ralph Nader for instance. In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes, which led to claims that he was responsible for Gore's defeat. What makes you think that wouldn't just occur again? I say that if Ron Paul ran as an independent he would simply siphon votes from the republican and hand the election to the democrat.
The Democrats and Republicans have rigged the system so that it is very hard for third party candidates to even get on the ballot. The media plays along, only giving regular attention to the Democrats and the Republicans. Typically in an entire election cycle they'll have one story about all those other candidates who are running. But the day to day coverage is for Republicans and Democrats only. Third party candidates are never invited to the various televised debates. The message from the mass media is clear: Only the Democrats and Republicans are serious candidates and have any chance of winning, the others are just human interest stories. Of course the mass media knows full well that this is a self fulfilling prophecy. Ron Paul did try running as a Libertarian in 1988. How many people even remember that run? Very, very few outside of the Libertarian Party, because the mass media ignored him then as it does all third party candidates. Although the media still does its best to ignore Ron Paul (you'd never know from the coverage that he regularly polls third among the Republican candidates) he still gets far more media coverage as a Republican than he ever would as a Libertarian. Ron Paul will not run as an independent. If he did, it would be fine by me if he siphoned off enough Republican votes so that Obama wins. After all, if the usual neocon Republican wins we will still be mired in the forever wars, we will still have $1 trillion+ deficits, and the Bill of Rights will still be a dead letter. Actually enough Democrats are sufficiently disgruntled with Obama that Ron Paul would probably pick up quite a few Democratic votes, so it's hard to say what effect an independent run by Ron Paul would have on the general election.
Except for gay marriage, and too numerous to mention views and values which are not politically correct or violates someone 's creative idea of civil rights.
I'm gonna stop yammering about Ron Paul. I made my position clear and said enough. You're entitled to vote for the man/woman who you think is the right one for the job. Lots of republicans and democrats feel he is the right guy. The other guys could stumble, have a scandal or flameout so you never know what could happen.