Everyone hates him. He's too liberal for liberals and too conservative for conservatives.
Don't confuse "Libertarian" with "liberal".
Don't confuse classical liberalism with American liberalism.
No, he is too socially conservative for liberals.
Right, which is worrisome. The reddit trajectory was: "intellectual and polite" -> "smart and combative" -> "kinda dumb and hive-minded" -> "lolcats". Simultaneously its median opinion towards Ron Paul seemed to go: "interesting" -> "savior" -> "devil" -> "who?". So it'd be another indicator that HN is sliding if we're becoming more enthused by Ron Paul. (I voted for him, btw.)