A new Iowa State University poll shows that Ron Paul is accelerating away from Mitt Romney in the race to capture the key Republican primary, with the Congressman placed first in front of Newt Gingrich, having captured more of former frontrunner Herman Cain’s supporters than Romney.

“Paul is the first choice of 27.5 percent of 333 likely caucus-goers among the 740 registered Republicans and 200 registered independents contacted by ISU,” reports KRCG.com. “That’s up from 20.4 percent in an ISU/Gazette/KCRG poll in November. He’s followed closely by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich whose support increased from 4.8 percent to 25.3 percent. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in at 17.5 percent, up from 16.3.”

However, despite the campaign’s building momentum, the Republican establishment has gone all out to denigrate Paul’s success, even rhetorically sabotaging the legitimacy of the Iowa primary.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who has been offered a potential VP slot under a Romney administration, ludicrously suggested that voters should completely disregard a Ron Paul victory and instead concentrate on which order Romney and Gingrich finish.

“People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third,” said Branstad, adding, ““If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states,” comments taken to mean that Republicans should “ignore” Ron Paul, according to Politico’s Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

Despite the fact that two out of the last three winners of the Republican primary in Iowa have gone on to become the GOP nominee, the corporate media has universally written off Paul’s chances in a callous effort to pre-empt reality. They are scared stiff that Paul could establish himself as a national frontrunner, which is a very real possibility given that he has captured a greater than expected number of Herman Cain’s voters, who himself was the national frontrunner before he was forced to drop out after revelations about his private life.

The snobbish, sneering attitude towards Paul that has been cultivated by the establishment has little to do with his chances of winning the overall nomination and everything to do with the guardians of the status quo being terrified of a Ron Paul administration going to war with a corrupt Washington elite.

read original here