During the week of August 27, three rallies were held in Tampa, Florida. The most publicized was the Republican National Convention, where Mitt Romney became the party’s nominee for president. Romney carried 42 states in the primaries and had the votes of more than 1,400 delegates at the convention. This was not a nail-biter, it was a cakewalk. But despite Romney racking up wins, one candidate refused to drop out of the race. That candidate was Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas — and the subject of the two other conventions held in Tampa that weekend.

Running simultaneously to the RNC were the Paul campaign-sponsored ‘We Are the Future’ rally and the grassroots-organized People Awakening and Uniting for Liberty (P.A.U.L.) Festival.

These rallies presented a stark contrast with the polished and professional RNC. While New Jersey governor Chris Christie lambasted Democrats for massive federal spending and being held in hock to labour unions, Pastor Chuck Baldwin criticized so-called Christians for booing the Golden Rule when Ron Paul evoked it with regards to foreign policy at a GOP debate. Professor Walter Block spent 15 minutes challenging the pro-life crowd to adopt a more pro-choice view on abortion — it was not traditional conservative political fare.

But a difference in message was not the only thing that separated the rallies. There was a palpable sense of opposition between the Ron Paul revolutionaries and the establishment GOP. When the RNC stripped state delegates of their status in an attempt to deny Ron Paul the requisite five delegations needed to be considered for the nomination, grassroots supporters rallied on the convention floor and got six state delegations to petition for Paul’s inclusion. The RNC Rules Committee’s response was to unilaterally raise the five-state threshold to eight.

At ‘We Are the Future’, Paul campaign advisor Doug Wead recounted tales of Paul supporters being physically assaulted at nominating conventions, entire boxes of ballots being destroyed, and a verbal memo coming down from state party chairmen ordering that if anyone of Hispanic descent or anyone under 50 began talking, the microphone should be shut off because they were a Ron Paul supporter.

Nowhere was the feeling of opposition more palpable than at P.A.U.L. Fest. While denounced the policies of the Republican party, historian and best-selling author Dr. Thomas E. Woods fervently dismissed the idea that Ron Paul supporters should back the Republican candidate with the words: “If you even want to imply that we are involved in some kind of common cause with a monster like Mitt Romney, then you have missed the whole point of the Ron Paul Revolution.”

Then Gary Johnson took the stage. Johnson is the Libertarian nominee for President and a former two-term governor of New Mexico. As governor he took the state from a $1-billion deficit to a $1-billion surplus, reformed Medicaid, called for the end of the death penalty and the legalization of marijuana. Johnson had tried to run in the Republican primary, but was kept out of the debates by an ever-changing polling threshold — first you had to poll at two percent to be included; when he reached two percent, it was raised to three; when he reached three, they stopped including his name in the polls.

Johnson now faces the same hurdle in the presidential election. To take part in the presidential debates, a candidate must poll at 15 per cent nationally — but Gary Johnson’s name is rarely included in the polls. In his speech, Johnson made a humble yet impassioned plea for Paul supporters to rally behind him to get him into the debates. This would provide a national stage for their issues — ending all foreign wars, abolishing the income tax, repealing the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA, legalizing marijuana, more stingent auditing of the Federal Reserve and legalizing competing currencies.

Johnson received raucous applause from the attendees and has received words of support from several libertarian luminaries. Whether the grassroots end up directing their energy towards a Johnson presidential campaign is yet to be seen, but if it happens it could make the outcome of the election unpredictable. When Johnson’s name was included in polls in two usually Democratic states, Romney inched ahead of Obama to victory, but when he was included in polls in usually Republican states, he sapped votes from Romney, giving Obama the edge.

But Ron Paul’s supporters aren’t afraid of being spoilers. To them a Romney administration is just as reprehensible as an Obama administration. Their goal is to deliver their message and awaken more people to the ideas of liberty. Gary Johnson may be just the man to ensure that happens.