He is on the fringe. You don’t have to like it, but he is not a top-tier candidate. But he has top-tier money now, so his status in the campaign may be in for a change:

Even before Monday, Paul had crept up to fourth in state GOP polling, with 7 percent in a survey last month by SRBI Research for Saint Anselm College. That put him behind Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain and essentially tied with Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

People are suddenly paying attention.

“I could see if Ron Paul gets 10 percent he could finish in fourth place,” said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. If Romney, Giuliani or McCain slip up, Paul could do even better, Smith said.

Smith said Paul’s anti-establishment image, similar to underdog winner Pat Buchanan’s in 1996, appeals to voters unhappy with what the mainstream candidates are offering.

But Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political scientist, said Paul needs to expand his base beyond the young, the libertarian and the disaffected.

“There is a ceiling on his coalition of voters,” said Scala. “He’s going to have to break through that ceiling and, at least in New Hampshire, reach out to more moderate Republicans.”

Paul agreed.

“I think that’s where our greatest strength is, is the fact that the unhappy Republicans and independents have turned against the Republicans because the Republicans claimed they were conservatives and they weren’t. They spent too much. The debt exploded and the war has been poorly run. We shouldn’t have been in it,” he said.

I hope he does very well. If he doesn’t win, I at least hope his message hit the other candidates right in the nose. Start with that last paragraph.