I just get the feeling that there’s something else going on, that there’s a wider game being played here. Paul doesn’t need the establishment. Usually a politician will cozy up the establishment because they have the machinery to get elected, the senator and governor endorsements put their armies to work who know all the arcane ballot rules.
But Paul doesn’t need that at all. He already has his father’s organization in all fifty states, who have learned all the rules in the past two elections. They know all the games. I get the feeling that Paul’s a different animal, as Reagan was, that, like how McCain and Romney used conservatives to try to gain power, Paul is using the establishment to get certain things done while he spins circles around them while they’re not looking. He’s already putting together different coalitions.
I could be wrong of course, and am not so naïve as to think that politicians don’t succumb to the powers that be. I just think that Paul is not at all intimidated by them. He did his filibuster right in their teeth, does things his own way, and without telling them first.
I detect a plan to thread the needle to the nomination, and with that, to election, with the establishment left holding an empty bag.