Last night, two big government Republicans of the George W. Bush mold tied for first place in Iowa. This will continue to make headlines until New Hampshire, much like Mike Huckabee’s unexpected win did in 2008. But like Huckabee, in the grand scheme of things Romney and Santorum’s moment is already yesterday’s headline, and a fairly insignificant one at that. For keen political observers, last night’s top headline unquestionably belonged to Ron Paul. In fact, the future of the Republican Party belongs to Paul. Last night’s 21% showing was by no means the beginning of this shift, but was certainly the strongest electoral indicator to date of its enduring power. Explains The American Conservative Editor Daniel McCarthy;

Five years ago, no one, not even Congressman Paul, would have imagined that 21 percent of voters in a hotly contested Republican caucus would support the Texas congressman’s brand of antiwar, constitutional conservatism and libertarianism. Paul didn’t just improve on his 2008 showing last night, he’s brought his philosophy from an asterisk in the Republican Party of George W. Bush to as much as a fifth of the vote in the GOP of 2012; there’s a fair chance he’ll win 20 percent again, or close to it, in New Hampshire.

Paul hasn’t come as far as quickly as the religious right did in the 1970s and ’80s or the Goldwater movement did in the 1960s. But those are the closest parallels to what he’s achieving, and the change he’s bringing about is arguably more profound. (The religious right, after all, could adapt and build upon pre-existing conservative infrastructure in the ’70s. The Paul movement is almost starting from scratch.)

More significant than the overall percentage Paul claimed last night, however, is the 48 percent he won of the under-30 vote. This augurs more than just a change in the factional balance within the GOP. It’s suggestive of a generational realignment in American politics. The fact that many of these young people do not consider themselves Republican is very much the point: Paul’s detractors cite that as a reason to discount them, but what it really means is that the existing ideological configuration of U.S. politics doesn’t fit the rising generation. They’re not Republicans, but they’re voting in a Republican primary: at one time, that same description applied to Southerners, social conservatives, and Reagan Democrats, groups that were not part of the traditional GOP coalition and whose participation completely remade the party…

The old pillars of politics don’t go away… but weight shifts to other structures over time. Paul has inaugurated such an architectonic shift.

Original article here