When Ron Paul announced yesterday afternoon that he would not seek another term in Congress, a small part of me lamented the end of an era. Until I came around to my sense and realized that insomuch as Ron Paul’s time in Washington DC had created an era, it was far from over. Ron Paul’s retirement was in part a product of his success rather than the end of it.

Whatever the reasons that others seek out political office, Ron Paul was one of the few that did it to change minds. Instead of a politician who let the views of the public influence his own, he was a politician who set out to influence the views of the public. And was more successful in doing so than probably any politician since Reagan. In finding someone with a comparable ideological influence who never held an office higher than the House of Representatives, is there even someone worth mentioning in second place?

Just like his 2008 Presidential run, Paul’s ultimate goal has always been ideological influence, knowing that it was the foundation on which electoral and policy victory would be built. And in that sense, his Congressional seat was just a means to achieve it. As Paul said in an interview after it had become all but guaranteed that John McCain would win the nomination, “If you’re in a campaign for only gaining power, that’s one thing. If you’re in a campaign to influence ideas and future of the country, the campaign is never over.”

He needed his Congressional seat, because otherwise he was just a doctor from Texas. with it, he was someone who could regularly speak on the floor of the House, occasionally appear on TV and be a legitimate enough Presidential candidate to be invited to the Republican primary debates.

Now Ron Paul doesn’t need to be a member of Congress to change hearts and minds. For years now TV shows have been interviewing him not because he represented the 14th district of Texas, but because he was, well, Ron Paul.

It’s quite a telling indication of his success that the ability to cast one of the 435 votes in the lower house of Congress is not longer his greatest tool of influence. As Dr. Paul said yesterday in an interview, “I don’t think I have so much of a political career as a much as trying to change the course of history and change the attitude of the American people.” As the politician who did more than anyone else to revitalize a movement and turn “libertarian” into a household name, his successes speak as well as he does.