Ron Paul is the Charlie Brown of the Republican presidential primary. All his fellow candidates are suddenly picking on him. Only a couple months ago, Rick Perry tried to steal from Paul by saying Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke should be tried for treason — and then tried to one-up the congressman by hinting that the 58-year-old bureaucrat might get beat up if he showed his face in Texas. But on Wednesday, Perry was taking shots at Paul, telling Iowa voters, "You don't have to vote for a candidate who will allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the earth because America will be next," Politico's Maggie Haberman reports. Mitt Romney, too, said, "actually one of the people running for president thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't." Rick Santorum called his foreign policy "scary." But Newt Gingrich's blow was the lowest: he told CNN he wouldn't vote for Paul over President Obama.

When CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Gingrich about the attack ads Paul was airing in Iowa about him, Gingrich responded:

"Well, first of all, as people get to know more about Ron Paul, who disowns 10 years of his own newsletter, says he didn't really realize what was in it, had no idea what he was making money on, had no idea that it was racist, anti-Semitic, called for the destruction of Israel, talked about a race war, all this is a sudden shock to Ron Paul? There will come a morning people won't take him as a serious person."

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Elspeth Reeve