Unable (so far) to secure a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, still-unbowed GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul is staging a counter-convention of his own across the river on the convention’s second day.

The 10-term congressman from Texas still has millions of dollars in campaign contributions to burn and a fervent following, even though he won not a single primary and has amassed only a handful of convention delegates. But he’s booked Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota for a rally on Sept. 2 in the hopes of attracting several thousand followers — and, not incidentally, attention from the 15,000 news media types who will already be in town to cover the big show at the Xcel Energy Center.

Here he is, on Fox News Tuesday, explaining his plans.

Mike Huckabee has been projected the winner of Saturday’s Kansas caucuses, according to Fox News and CNN.

Huckabee holds a commanding lead over Sen. John McCain — 62 percent to 22 percent, with 76 percent of precincts reporting. Ron Paul is third with 11 percent.

Today’s caucuses will award 36 pledged delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Earlier this morning, Huckabee announced in a speech to a conservative organization that he planned to remain in the race.

“Am I quitting? Let’s get this settled right now. No, I am not,” he said.

Kansas was holding only Republican caucuses today. Democrats held their caucuses earlier this week, on Super Tuesday. Sen. Barack Obama won with 74 percent of the vote.

Three other states are voting today. Louisiana has a Democratic and Republican primary, Washington state has caucuses for both parties and Nebraska is holding Democratic caucuses.

We’ll learn the answer to that question tonight, after the last voters cast their ballots and head out into the freezing temperatures and snow drifts.

The wintry weather across the state adds another complicating factor to today’s GOP Michigan Primary.

The Republican contest already faced the possibility of Democratic input that could skew the results. When Michigan decided to move up its primary date into January, the national parties meted out punishment. The Democratic Party was harsher, striping the state of all delegates to the national convention. In response, Barack Obama and John Edwards removed their names from the ballot, leaving Hillary Rodham Clinton with an easy win — but a meaningless one.

The Republican Party only took away half the GOP delegates, leaving 30 delegates to fight over. Unlike the Democratic candidates, the Republicans have a real battle going on in the state, with Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney gaining the top two spots in most polls, and Mike Huckabee close behind them.

And with voters allowed to choose which party’s primary they want to vote in — without being registered in that party — it opens the possibility of Democrats voting in the GOP primary — either for their favorite Republican…or to create mischief.

Now, with the cold and snowfall of as much as 6 inches in some places, who calls it a day and stays home, and who slogs to the polls? Do Democrats who otherwise would have voted in the GOP Primary decide it’s not worth the bother? Do Huckabee’s evangelical voters turn out in full force? Could there be an even bigger surprise in store — meaning a Ron Paul victory?

In one of the more bizarre juxtapositions of the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Ron Paul is (indirectly, at least) lashing his surging fundraising success to the anti-monarchical sentiments of Guy Fawkes Day (that would be today, Nov. 5) and a

dystopian movie about a latter-day Fawkes who leads the overthrow of a totalitarian British government in the near future.

Got that?

Some explanation is in order. November 5 has long been commemorated in Great Britain as the day Fawkes planned to blow up parliament and the king in 1605. A couple of years ago, the movie ”V for Vendetta” leveraged that historical event into a future England, where the hero, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, picks up where the original left off. If you watch the clip, you’ll notice paens to Paul superimposed on it. (It also contains one of the movie’s bumper-sticker slogans: “People should not be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”)

Paul’s supporters (without the formal support of the candidate) took the movie’s signature line — “Remember, remember the 5th of November” — as a fundraising call to arms, asking supporters to donate $100 that would contribute to Paul’s surprising fundraising success. Here’s their website, including a video of Paul addressing supporters, saying, in part, “If Nov. 5 really works out well, they really WILL remember the 5th of November.” As of midday, contributions had surpassed $1.6 million.

Oddly enough, Guy Fawkes Day also has been adopted by some 9/11 conspiracy types. One sent supporters an e-mail today. One called “V for Vendetta” an allegory for 9/11, celebrating rebellion against a fascist regime that had established itself by a huge false-flag terror attack blamed on Muslims.”

UPDATE, 11/6: Paul hauled in more than $4.2 million, all of it online, from 37,000 donors.

Although almost no one is predicting that Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, will be the next president of the United States, he has been generating headlines, campaign contributions and chatter among mainstream pundits and bloggers alike.

For the candidate’s own version of his platform and priorities, here’s Paul’s official campaign site.  And here’s his first TV ad, which went up this week in New Hampshire, the state where he’s currently polling most robustly.

Despite his relativeley anemic poll numbers overall, his surprising fundraising success and his attention-grabbing performances during Republican debates have contributed to the increasing attention paid to Paul. The $8.2 million he raised in the first nine months of the year raised more than a few eyebrows, while the debates have contributed to audible word-of-mouth about him among independents, disaffected Republicans and libertarians. Here’s a debate from September, while here’s one held this month in Florida. (Dozens more are just a click away on YouTube.)

So, maybe he won’t be the next president, but Paul seems poised to shake up the Republican race at least a bit.