Ron Paul is an extremist. But is he also a Democratic cat's paw?

Jewish conservatives are worried about Ron Paul.

 Dan Lederman, a Jewish Republican state sentator from South Dakota, is worried specifically about “(Paul's) views on national security, the white supremacy thing, foreign policy, the stance that having a nuclear Iran is okay.”Others are concerned that Paul's rhetoric also seems to be strongly anti-Israel, though not necessarily anti-Semitic.

Paul has denied responsibility for a series of racist posts in the newsletter he published under his own name in the Seventies. Paul claims he didn't pay attention to what was being published under his name, and didn't even know who wrote some of it. The viewpoints expressed in the newsletter, however, seem to correspond to those of many of Paul's supporters- a point which concerns even people who (like me) do not believe that Paul is personally racist.

The trouble is that although Paul disavows the viewpoints of these bigots and extremist fanatics, he does not disavow their support- and they seem drawn to him like flies to honey.  These connections, along with Paul's isolationist foreign policy and vigorous insistance that Iran has every right to build nuclear weapons without UN sanctions or American opposition despite the nature of its leadership, concern many Republicans of all faiths. President Obama has been the subject of criticism from a great many conservatives for his tendency to grovel before foreign leaders and apologize for America even when no such apology is called for. But next to Ron Paul, Mr. Obama looks like Winston Churchill.

Paul's extremism seems to have escaped many here in Iowa. While Paul has run ads attacking the record of other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, he has bristled at the notion that his record is also fair game. And Paul has not been attacked by the other candidates, largely because he is seen as irrelevant; his chances of winning the nomination have generally been seen as nil by all but Paul's own supporters.

But recent polls have shown Paul running strongly in several states besides Iowa. Many Republicans, attracted by Paul's hard-line views on the budget, seem unaware that on Iran and the war on terrorism he is considerably to the left of even President Obama, or of his general reputation for extremism.

At the very least, a Paul victory here in Iowa on January 3 would not only be a major black eye for the state, but might well endanger the future of the Iowa Caucuses.. After all, it would be hard to argue that a state whose Republican caucuses had been won by Ron Paul in 2012 should even be taken seriously in 2016. I personally expect Paul's support elsewhere to plummet as voters become more familiar with his positions on foreign policy and the nature of much of his support. Many Republican leaders worry that Democrats and other far-Left elements might cross party lines to caucus for Paul, and then switch back to President Obama in November.

But that might not happen soon enough to prevent Iowa Republicans from making fools of themselves in front of the entire world.