Ron Paul defends his candidacy at GOP debate

It took NBC debate moderator Brian Williams about 15 minutes to turn to Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and when he did, he hinted at the question on the minds of most observers of the Republican presidential race: When will Paul drop out?

“To say that there has only been three races and talk about not being electable, I think is a bit of a stretch,” Paul said.

Paul finished in third place in the Iowa caucuses and second in the New Hampshire primary. But he placed last in South Carolina last weekend among a narrowed field of four candidates.

Still, he pushed back against the notion that he is not a serious candidate at this stage in the race. He dismissed discussion of the Iowa caucuses – “It was a straw vote” – and noted that very few delegates have been won in the first three nominating contests of the year.

Paul again said he had no plans to mount a third-party challenge if he failed to win the Republican nomination, but wouldn’t go as far as to rule it out entirely.

“I have no plans to do that and no intention,” he said. “…I don’t want to. But I haven’t been an absolutionist.”

He also took his moment in the spotlight to challenge rival Newt Gingrich’s version of the events that led to his ouster as speaker of the House in the late 1990s.

Gingrich had previously suggested that he stepped down voluntarily because he was taking responsibility for his party’s poor showing in the 1998 midterm elections.

“That’s just not the way it was,” said Paul, who was a member of Congress at the time.

“He didn’t have the votes,” Paul said. “That was what the problem was.”

Asked if he would consider supporting Gingrich as the GOP nominee, Paul praised Gingrich for latching onto the topic of monetary policy, which has been Paul’s signature issue for decades.

“You know, he keeps hinting about attacking the Fed,” Paul said, referring to the Federal Reserve. “…If I could just change him on foreign policy, we might be able to talk.”

kim.geiger@latimes.com