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Ron Paul, the Libertarian-leaning Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate who has attracted has a small but passionate following, today said he would not be endorsing John McCain for president.

According to the Associated Press, Paul said today that former McCain advisor Phil Gramm called Paul and encouraged him to back the Arizona senator. Paul refused.

Instead, Paul urged voters to back a third party candidate such as Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader or Chuck Baldwin, all of whom appeared with Paul today.* Paul supports these candidates because he believes they agree with him on what he considers to be four key issues: balancing budgets, bringing troops home, protecting personal liberties and investigating the Federal Reserve.

"The two parties and their candidates have no real disagreements on foreign policy, monetary policy, privacy issues, or the welfare state," Paul said, according to his prepared remarks. He added that the time has come to recognize that "the only way not to waste one’s vote is to reject the two establishment candidates and join the majority, once called silent, and allow the voices of the people to be heard."

"At a time when 60% of the American people are dissatisfied with their presidential choices, this could be the year that third party option bring in a big chunk of the vote," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said in an email to CBS News. "That would really be something!"

*CORRECTION: This post originally stated that Bob Barr appeared with Paul today. He did not.

Barack Obama may have Invesco Field, but Ron Paul can now lay claim to the Target Center.

Supporters of Paul, the libertarian-leaning former Republican presidential candidate, plan to rally in Minneapolis in conjunction with the Republican National Convention, which will be held in nearby St. Paul beginning September 1st.

As the Associated Press reports, that rally has now been moved to the 15,000-plus capacity Target Center, home of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Paul will speak at the rally on Sept. 2nd, day two of the RNC.

"They're there for their political convention to nominate their candidate," local Paul coordinator Marianne Stebbins said, according to the AP. "We're supplementing it. Liberty is getting short shrift right now. We're giving our people a place to go for those days."

Most political watchers may be focused on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain tonight, but it was also an important evening for two candidates who fell short in their White House runs: Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich.

Both candidates faced primary challenges for their House seats on Friday – Paul in Texas and Kucinich in Ohio.

Final results have yet to come in in the contest involving Kucinich, though the Wall Street Journal reports that early votes showed him "leading his nearest rival by about 2-1."

Kucinich was facing, among others, Joe Cimperman, whom the Associated Press described as "the toughest, best-financed challenger in his 12-year congressional career." Cimperman has called Kucinich a "showman," not a Congressman.

Paul, meanwhile, easily won his primary night fight, according to the AP. The 10-term libertarian-leaning Congressman who raised large sums over the Internet for his White House run defeated local Councilman Chris Peden.

Most political watchers may be focused on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain tonight, but it was also an important evening for two candidates who fell short in their White House runs: Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich.

Both candidates faced primary challenges for their House seats on Friday – Paul in Texas and Kucinich in Ohio.

Final results have yet to come in in the contest involving Kucinich, though the Wall Street Journal reports that early votes showed him "leading his nearest rival by about 2-1."

(UPDATE, 1:30 AM: Kucinich has likely won the contest.)

Kucinich was facing, among others, Joe Cimperman, whom the Associated Press described as "the toughest, best-financed challenger in his 12-year congressional career." Cimperman has called Kucinich a "showman," not a Congressman.

Paul, meanwhile, easily won his primary night fight, according to the AP. The 10-term libertarian-leaning Congressman who raised large sums over the Internet for his White House run defeated local Councilman Chris Peden.

Ron Paul has once again said he won’t mount an third-party candidacy even while acknowledging that his prospects for winning the Republican nomination are nearly non-existent. In a message to supporters on his campaign Web site today, Paul wrote, “with [Mitt] Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get."

The Texas congressman said he is cutting his national campaign staff and noted that he is also concentrating on holding onto his House seat, according to the AP. Paul faces a primary challenge. "If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas," Paul wrote. "I cannot and will not let that happen." Texas holds its primary contests for the presidential race and House races on March 4th.

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How non-confrontational were the Republican presidential candidates in last night's debate? They were so nice to one another that even Rudy Giuliani resisted the temptation to get into an argument with anti-war candidate Ron Paul. It was so friendly that the harshest comment came in the form of a joke by nice-guy Mike Huckabee when he suggested that Mitt Romney is chipping away at his children's inheritance by spending so much of his personal fortune on the campaign.

It may have been an amicable exchange but coming just days before Tuesday's important Florida primary it was hardly inconsequential. Some thoughts on the ballet in Boca:

The most recent polls have shown Romney building a very slight lead over the past few days and his debate performance can only help that trend. In a debate with almost no candidate-to-candidate attacks, Romney shined. His grasp of details on a range of issues and his optimistic disposition helped him stand out in a still-crowded field. It didn't hurt that he appeared to get the most time to speak. One trouble spot: Romney was yet again asked about how his Mormon faith might impact voters' willingness to back him. It wasn't a problem because of his answer but because it remains an issue for him. Still, if Romney wins on Tuesday, we might look back at last night as a key moment.

John McCain looked like the front-runner he is, at least nationally, and the rest of the field was very deferential to him, which gives him some gravitas everyone else lacks. And his strong stances on the war and flashes of humor serve him well in these debates. But McCain stumbled a bit on economic issues, falling back on generalities and well-worn rhetoric about spending restraint and bridges to nowhere.

For a candidate who may be facing his final days in the race, Rudy Giuliani didn't appear anxious to find ways to separate himself from the field. His appeal to Florida voters on issues like a national fund to help the state's hurricane insurance problems was clear but he didn’t find ways to hammer those points home. The most telling moment was when he compared his chances to those of the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. Being that big an underdog at the most important moment in his campaign doesn't exactly project a lot of confidence.

Mike Huckabee's populist economic message may make a lot of sense to many voters but they're probably not the ones who will be voting in Florida on Tuesday – or many other Republican primaries to come. Sounding like FDR at times, Huckabee's suggestion that the federal stimulus package would be better spent building roads seemed out of place. Huckabee's biggest economic worry is the financial health of his own campaign, something that won't be corrected by anything he said last night.

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Ron Paul's fervent supporters have something to crow about: With nearly all precincts reporting, the Texas representative is sitting in second place in the Nevada caucuses.

Now, a few caveats. First off, it's a pretty distant second. Paul only got 14 percent of the vote, far behind Mitt Romney's 51 percent. Secondly, Paul barely edged out John McCain, who didn't campaign in Nevada, whereas Paul ran ads in the state. And third, Paul is not looking like a factor in South Carolina, where voters went to the polls today.

Still, second place is second place, and the Paul campaign is celebrating.

“Ron Paul has once again topped multiple media-anointed ‘frontrunners’ with his poll-defying second place showing in Nevada,” Paul campaign chairman Kent Snyder said in a statement. “We’re in this race to win, and we’re going to battle for every delegate in this wide-open race for the Republican nomination.”

DES MOINES -- Rudy Giuliani campaigned far less in Iowa than his opponents in the run-up to the caucuses, and he wasn't expected to do well here. And he didn't: With most precincts reporting, Giuliani had less than ten percent of the GOP vote on Thursday night. It was a poor showing for the onetime national frontrunner, even considering the diminished expectations.

But there was some upside for Giuliani tonight: Mike Huckabee beat Mitt Romney. And that means that the Republican field continues to have no real frontrunner. It's good news for Giuliani, whose strategy depends on the field remaining fluid until the larger, delegate rich states vote.

"We congratulate Mike Huckabee on a hard-fought victory in Iowa," Giuliani Campaign Manager Michael DuHaime said in a statement. "This race is wide open and we will continue to run a national primary campaign designed to win the number of delegates necessary to become the Republican nominee."

Romney outspent Huckabee 20-1 here, and his loss severely diminishes his standing in the Republican field. He now goes to New Hampshire to battle John McCain, with whom the former Massachusetts governor is neck-in-neck in state polls. Despite his win here, Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, has fewer campaign funds than his rivals, and he may have less appeal nationally than he does in Iowa, which has a relatively high-percentage of religious GOP caucus-goers.

Ron Paul's campaign, meanwhile, didn't have the breakthrough here it had hoped. But with roughly 10 percent support, and a win over Giuliani, Paul's campaign is spinning his showing as a victory.

"I think it's a pretty big statement that we finished substantially in front of the national frontrunner," said Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. "This was a difficult environment and we did not have a lot of time, but we were able to build to double-digit support. It speaks to the grassroots support Dr. Paul enjoys."

Libertarian-minded GOP candidate Ron Paul's campaign says it won't return a $500 donation given his campaign by a self-declared white supremacist. Florida resident Don Black, who runs a Web site called "Stormfront," recently made the donation, according to the Associated Press. The Web site's motto is, "White Pride World Wide." Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told the AP, "Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he's wasted his money. Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom. And that's $500 less that this guy has to do whatever it is that he does."

Ron Paul may be the only presidential candidate whose supporters get as much press as he does.

A 200-foot long blimp encouraging people to "Google Ron Paul," which was paid for by Paul supporters and is not affiliated with his campaign, is presently flying over North Carolina, according to the Associated Press. It "is scheduled to float up the East Coast past major cities," the AP reports.

The blimp marks just the latest example of a Ron Paul initiative that didn't come from Ron Paul. On just one day – November 5th – Paul supporters, in an independent initiative, raised more than $4 million for the presidential campaign of the Libertarian-leaning Republican congressman from Texas.

In the most recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Paul earned the support of 4 percent of Republican primary voters. But despite that relatively small figure, Paul's supporters are unusually passionate and internet savvy, and the candidate, who favors smaller government and opposes the Iraq war, has a disproportionately strong online presence.