Republican Rep. Ron Paul told the Tribune this morning he will not back Sen. John McCain as his party's nominee unless the Arizona senator "has a lot of change of heart."

"I can not support anybody with the foreign policy he advocates, you know, perpetual war. That is just so disturbing to me," Paul said.
"I think it's un-American, un-Constitutional, immoral, and not Republican."

As for as his own White House bid, Paul appears to be a man torn between two lines of thought: hoping something drastic happens or accepting that it probably won't. Consider, after this weekend's contests, 1,242 out of 2,380 delegates a candidate needs to win have already been decided, meaning that Paul – with a delegate count that ranges from 16 to 42 – can only win if the convention gets brokered or if Romney gives him his delegates, both extremely unlikely possibilities.

To put it another way: This is the first week when even if Paul won every single delegate in every single upcoming contest, he still could not win the nomination straight out.

"It is true the numbers are not very positive. But you know we started off with eleven [candidates] in the campaign and now it's down to three," he said.

"I suspect it's not totally impossible for something to come up about McCain that will totally discredit him. When the people know how liberal he is – that's coming out all the time."

Paul added: "It is true the numbers are bad, but influence is important too. If we have a significant number of people and we're still here, why can't we influence the party to become conservative again?"