Buzzfeed Politics outlines it:
Paul is following the roadmap set by Barack Obama's 2008 strategy: Start early, learn the rules, and use superior organization and devoted young supporters to dominate the arcane but crucial party procedures in states your rivals are ignoring — states where caucuses and conventions that elect the delegates who will ultimately choose the Republican candidate.
Bottom line:
Ron Paul will almost certainly not be his party’s nominee. But he will almost certainly force Mitt Romney or another frontrunner to battle him for delegates, and to engage a candidate to his right. Paul could even, in a long and close race, wind up a kingmaker. It's a scenario most in the party eye warily.
Here's hoping. But Santorum, the coalescence of the Christianists behind him, and the harsh spotlight on the old newsletters suggest to me that the chance of a real breakthrough for Paul's ideas has diminished.
The Dish 