Seems Dr. Ron Paul’s hedging his bets. From the Mad Hatter at Daily Whackjob comes this on Ron Paul’s visit to Liberty University this morning:

But the important thing is this: his staffers were collecting signatures for a Ron Paul presidential run in Virginia. They talked as if he will be on the ballot no matter what. This is good news for his supporters, bad news for McCain. Dr. Paul has continued to be coy about whether he will run as an independent, but I feel confident that he will.

2/9 UPDATE: Or not:

Mr. Paul clearly stated that he will not run as a third-party candidate. Right now, his priorities are serving the residents in his Texas congressional district and winning re-election.

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.

From what we can make of the letter, Mr. Paul is staying in the race on a peripheral level, just so he can keep participating in policy discussions (and maybe use up all that money he’s amassed?).

All four smoking ban bills were killed in a House sub-committee yesterday.

UPDATE: A commenter at WOTBN notes that the House merely killed the House versions of the bills:

The RTD isn’t quite right. The House killed the House bills tonight. The Senate bills (the ones that passed on Tuesday) have yet to be heard in the House. So, 9 of the 13 are gone for good, but 4 are still alive. I expect they’ll meet the same fate, but the RTD shouldn’t report them as dead quite yet.

Of further note, Tyler Whitley’s little editorial aside in the brief wasn’t really necessary:

The Virginia Senate had approved the bans but the House — continuing its anti-government streak — rejected a series of bills designed to limit smoking. — Tyler Whitley

“Anti-government streak”? What does that even mean?

UPDATE x2: “A commenter” from above isn’t just any commenter but is Cathleen from Smoke Free Virginia Now.

Disney’s Michael Eisner says the writer’s strike may be over this weekend.