Is the Ron Paul Campaign Dangerous?

I have just finished reading J.B. Williams article, "Why The Ron Paul Campaign is Dangerous" over at gopusa.com, and I have a few comments.

I find his claim that there are virtually no real Conservatives supporting Paul to be way out of touch with reality. I come from a very Conservative upbringing, but sadly I have been politically homeless for the past several years due to reckless spending and what I have come to view as a dangerous foreign policy out of step with that advocated by the founders of our country. I have studied the history of the Republican party, and I have observed an abandonment of most of the core principles over the past 8 years. Ron Paul has brought me back into the Republican party, as he has done with countless others here in my own city who are now working with me to get Mr. Paul elected.

I concede Mr. Williams' point that many Democrats and Independents are jumping parties to support Paul, but shouldn't the Republican party be celebrating this. I thought that when large numbers of people switched parties for any reason that it was called growth, something the GOP has sadly seen little of recently. Paul represents a unique opportunity in our history to return to the true Conservative Republican values of self reliance and true self government. Not the kind of self government that Pres. Bush speaks about when he speaks of "liberating" third world countries and subsequently imposing his idea of self government on them by occupying them for seemingly the rest of time. When I see the now small remaining base of the Republican party refusing to embrace a candidate who has managed to persuade millions of of Americans of all political and social backgrounds that our current direction of more and bigger government is the wrong direction, I remember why I ceased supporting the GOP back in 2001.