Paul proving to be a force in 2012 GOP contest

McALLEN, Texas — Ron Paul, antag­o­nist of the Fed­eral Reserve and advo­cate for the gold stan­dard, prob­a­bly won’t cap­ture the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion. But with his lib­er­tar­ian lean­ings ener­giz­ing a small though grow­ing group of pas­sion­ate con­ser­v­a­tives, the quirky Texas con­gress­man is prov­ing to be a force in the 2012 contest.