According to second quarter FEC presidential campaign fund raising statistics, GOP congressman Ron Paul pulled in more contributions from self-identified U.S. military personnel than any other candidate for the GOP nomination. It wasn’t even close. From usaelectionpolls.com:

How does a candidate like Ron Paul out-draw a war hero, military supporter, and war booster such as John McCain? There is no question that Ron Paul is a leading critic of the rogue Bush regime’s continued occupation of Iraq, and supports ending the occupation and bringing home U.S. military personnel immediately. So, the statistics for Mr. Paul are definitely an interesting sort of confirmation of a military.com poll that nearly 60% of active duty personnel and vets want to pull out of Iraq either immediately or by the end of 2008.

There’s no question that Ron Paul is touching a nerve with some GOP, independent, and “libertarian” voters. Still, even with anecdotal evidence such as the 2Q fundraising statistics, and the fact that Paul has more cash on-hand than does John McCain and Mitt Romney, he barely makes a blip in the latest Fox News poll. (All snark aside, a Fox News poll would be a pretty good indicator of GOP support.)

Is there a disconnect between polling and Ron Paul’s true base of support? More to the point, should the marquee names in the GOP race be concerned? It’s going to be an interesting GOP presidential primary campaign season this autumn, particularly if Mitt Romney’s makeup job ever gets nearly as much play as John Edwards’ haircut.

Update: Via the DFH Atrios, we find that Editor and Publisher has the scoop on a Ron Paul article scheduled to run in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. More after the article is posted on the NYT website…

Updated update: NYT profile of Ron Paul is now online. Let us know what you think. In general, my opinion is that it’s a fairly balanced article (much more than can be said of the typical hit pieces against mainstream candidates from both the GOP and Dems.)