Posted on 04/10/2015 8:43:25 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Five reasons why the Kentucky senator trails Ted Cruz in fundraising, but is still stealing the spotlight.
If you’re a member of the Washington media, odds are you’ve spent at least some time over the past 48 hours discussing Rand Paul’s entry into the presidential race and his testy exchanges about abortion with an Associated Press reporter. Reporters and pundits have covered Paul’s debut for The Washington Post, NPR, The Huffington Post, and the Today Show. The Daily Beast offered space to the libertarian Cato Institute’s David Boaz to argue that yes, Paul can do it. In The Hill, Dick Morris argued that he can’t.
Meanwhile, the disclosure that Ted Cruz—also a declared candidate for president—raised $31 million in a week, although certainly reported, seems to have aroused nothing like this kind of media excitement. Google News tallied half as many citations for “Can Ted Cruz win?” as for “Can Rand Paul win?” Chris Cillizza explained why Cruz chose to announce at Liberty University but had this to say about the candidate’s prospects: "Cruz badly needs social conservatives on his side if he wants to have any serious chance at being the Republican nominee in 2016”—and then went on to explain why that was unlikely to happen. Mark Halperin dismissed Cruz as a “second-tier” candidate.
Yet to the extent there are metrics, Cruz is outperforming Paul in the first phases of the presidential race. Not only has Cruz raised more money than Paul, but a National Journal survey of social media found that Cruz’s presidential launch attracted dramatically more social media interaction than Paul’s.
Neither man has an easy or obvious path to the nomination. Both men face powerful, perhaps insuperable, opposition within the party. Paul’s path is probably even more emphatically foredoomed...
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Frum said Iraq would be a walk in the park. George W. Bush’s Day Off was supposed to pay for itself with oil revenue from Iraq. Our soldiers would be welcomed as liberators. Operation Iraqi Freedom cost us the White House, the Congress, Obamacare, executive amnesty, a moribund economy, a doubled national debt, and the rise of a new strain of radical Islam resistant to all known antibodies.
Grassroots candidate support grows from word of mouth. The word is out about Cruz. He is gaining momentum. His supporters have volunteered in numerous campaigns. They know what needs to be done. Nothing will deter them.
Drum is classified as a neocon.....
He believes in gay marriage and stringent gun control.
With conservatives like him, who needs liberals
The media frenzy over Paul is based on 2 things: 1) he’s new to the campaign - but that part will fizzle on Sunday when the Beast declares; 2) he isn’t Ted Cruz, and he is perceived as taking away from Cruz. That will never go away until Paul leaves the race.
The media hates and fears Cruz like they hated and feared Reagan, and will pull out all of the stops to make him lose.
Sounds like a re-run from 1980.
Oh, GAD! Not again!
What is with this absurd obsession with the term, seemingly coined forever in granite at FR, that every living soul, “FEARS”, whoever is their particular favorite candidate!
It is so “lofo” tacky sounding. It is wayyyy too early to try to declare victory before the race begins.
Sorry, for the rant, but it makes my head explode with embarrassment to hear that BS, before we have even strapped on our pants, toppled NO ONE, won NOTHING, with only one other Republican opponent declaring.
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