And the truth is, yeah, American voters can be easily swayed by views on very few issues. I'm pretty sure his complete and total anti-war leanings (only matched in scale by other "nuts" like Kucinich and Gravel) were a huge factor in his wide support among youth.
Yeah, you're right that this was most likely the biggest issue. That is, aside from the various other demagogic and plain naive claims: such as saying Ron Paul supports "a sound fiscal policy" (very nice non-issue; I don't think I've ever heard a candidate say that they support an
unsound fiscal policy), or the claim that Ron Paul is the "only one" who supports the constitution.
It's too bad that even his anti-war views are ridiculous and completely out of touch with reality. These same people who supported him for his anti-war stance don't understand that the U.S. have troops all over the world that are busy ensuring stability in various troubled regions. Retracting all of these soldiers without regard for the safety of those areas is a suicidally bad idea. It would certainly result in a shock wave of unrest and violence through those regions that cannot immediately be backed up by U.N. or regional troops. This includes Iraq, which is yet another region that is unable to stand on its own two feet at this very moment, of course.
This isn't even a very deep analysis I'm making here. It's very basic. It goes to show that Ron Paul supporters simply don't think very deeply about these things and will gladly accept a viewpoint that, at a glance, might seem very acceptable.