Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul’s auction of Hillary Clinton’s book “Hard Choices” — which he billed as “a great fiction book” on his campaign website and signed with a biting note to the Democratic presidential candidate — was up to nearly $8,000 on eBay Thursday afternoon. Clinton had a go at the GOP candidates who doubted her competency as secretary of state by sending them all copies of “Hard Choices,” along with the following note: So Paul shot back, putting his “Hard Choices” copy up for auction with goodies that make it a “one of a kind” buy. Here’s an image of...

Hot off his surprise interview with the reclusive Matt Drudge, the excited radio host texts to say he thinks Clinton is ‘too corrupt and evil’ for the presidency—and Paul is his man. In late September, Rand Paul announced that he had been endorsed by eight people: Fox News’s John Stossel; his own father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul; Reps. Mick Mulvaney, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, Cynthia Lummis, and Raul Labrador; and Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Famer Pat Miletich. Paul can now add one more name to that impressive list: professional conspiracy theorist and iodine salesman Alex Jones,...

In a move that will no doubt disappoint many of his political supporters, Senator Rand Paul stated publicly that fellow GOP Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz is “done for” in the Senate. Senator Paul’s words appeared to be part of his defense of current Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, himself the subject of increasing pressure from unhappy conservatives to step down from that position due to McConnell’s ongoing unwillingness to more forcefully fight the Obama agenda. It should be noted that at present, the Paul presidential campaign is floundering at just 1% in most polls while Cruz continues to...

hy has Rand Paul's presidential campaign been such a dud? There's something perplexing about his failure to take off. He should be building on his father's success and expanding the Paul coalition. After all, his Senate campaign in 2010 revealed him to be a savvy politician capable of blending the major aspects of his father's paleo-libertarian ideology with Republican orthodoxy. And since then, the younger Paul has enjoyed a much bigger media profile than his father ever had. He gave a well-reviewed speech to the 2012 Republican National Convention, a stage that his father never would have been allowed to...

During a brief, little-noticed speech in May, Rep. Mick Mulvaney implored Republican presidential contenders and their supporters to stop tailoring their rhetoric to satisfy true believers and instead prioritize expanding the conservative tent. (SNIP) This concern was clearly influential in his decision to endorse Paul. Comparing the Kentucky senator with rival Republican contender Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mulvaney had this to say in an interview with the Associated Press: "Ted is not bringing anybody new into the party. Rand is."

...And they're probably right We’re going to ignore the unseemly, obviously biased, glee with which they deliver this news. We’re also going to gloss over the fact that, if the phrase ‘death watch’ had been applied to Hillary, liberals would spin it into wishful thinking on the part of evil conservatives who want her to literally die. Since we’re not progressives, we’ll just look at the facts and say this: When CNN claims that Rand Paul’s campaign is “officially on death watch,” they’re probably right. Barring a miraculous turnaround, Rand Paul’s campaign is nearing the end of the road. From...

He gave the voters a good look at him -- and now it looks like he's gone.Last October, for the third time in three years, Sen. Rand Paul made the cover of Time magazine. The headline: "The Most Interesting Man in American Politics." The New York Times Magazine had just put him on the cover that August, with a lot of edgy graphics proclaiming him a "Major Threat" to the Republican establishment. It made sense, or it seemed to. In the very, very early polls, the Kentucky senator was running neck-and-neck with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the top...

Another Paul aide told BuzzFeed News that the campaign had made a few new hires in the past two weeks. The campaign insists there will be no shakeups or changes in strategy, that Paul will continue his campaign schedule in the early states and regions off the beaten track, and that it has enough resources to carry the candidate through at least the first four primaries. Now, Paul is bidding for ownership of a niche, and for a long primary where his libertarian base returns to grind out caucus wins. Despite the glimmers of hope, one adviser to the campaign...

For how long, though? The Paul campaign was supposed to energize younger voters with more libertarian leanings, and provide Rand Paul with his father’s constituency married to a higher level of respectability. So far, though, the results in terms of fundraising have been disappointing. Over the last three months, Team Paul only collected $2.5 million — less than one million dollars a month, far behind Paul’s competitors, and a decline of almost two-thirds from the previous quarter. Even so, the Kentucky Senator insists he’s staying in the race, and that his prospects have improved of late: Rand Paul raised just...

The libertarian moment in American politics—foretold just last year in the New York Times magazine—is like the horizon; always retreating as we advance upon it. The political events of 2015 are a brutal reminder about how far this country is from embracing libertarianism and how alien those ideas are even to the purported shock troops of the freedom movement. While libertarianism’s opponents can take heart, its champions are setting their cause back by pretending that all is well. The collapse of the Rand Paul campaign speaks volumes. In a 15-person field, Paul is the only candidate who looks even remotely...

In the first week since its launch, the petition to gather support for a town hall featuring Sens. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul has exploded. In addition to the thousands of signatures collected, Senator Paul confirmed with Truth In Media that he would in fact participate in a town hall with Senator Sanders. “Anytime, anywhere,” Paul told Truth In Media’s Joshua Cook. After much back and forth between the Sanders campaign and Truth In Media, Senator Sanders’ camp has “no comment” at this time. Neither the Republican National Committee nor the Democratic National Committee has confirmed with Truth In Media...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's campaign for president will announce in the coming days that it raised approximately $2.5 million in the third quarter and has $2 million cash on hand, Communications Director Sergio Gor said Thursday. That haul is just a fraction of the $20 million the campaign of retired brain surgeon Ben Carson says it is on track to post for the third quarter -- half of that money coming in in September alone. Paul's third quarter total is well under the $7 million the libertarian firebrand raised in the second quarter. Part of that money was transferred from...

This week, Politico released on article suggesting that Ted Cruz has lost the trust of his peers, save for libertarian-leaning Mike Lee, who chimed in to his defense. The comments on the article, mostly from liberals who will never agree with a conservative philosophy anyway, resorted to ad hominin attacks. Criticism from the left is to be expected; however, the concerning part of this story is that conservatives and libertarians are voicing their opposition to Cruz fighting the status quo. The irony? Both camps claim to share the belief that Washington is dysfunctional, and many public opinion polls show that...

Mark “The Great One” Levin had some kind words to say about Ted Cruz: “Ted Cruz is the most consistently conservative candidate running.” The conservative talker also blasted Mitch McConnell, the Republican Majority Leader in the Senate who recently shut down Ted Cruz when he used his time on the Senate floor to educate voters about the deceptive games McConnell and his ilk play. “Today we have a guy by the name of Mitch McConnell [...]. He’s got no class whatsoever. And he gets this really sick joy in trying to control the Senate floor within his own caucus. Harry...

Mark Levin blasted McConnell tonight article came out in Politico that explained how McConnell has worked against and ‘quarantined’ Ted Cruz from the rest of the Senate, stifling him from trying to defund Planned Parenthood and kill the Iran deal. Levin also ripped Rand Paul for trashing Ted Cruz yesterday, telling Paul he’s had enough of him making deals with McConnell. Listen:

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul could be on the chopping block and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham may not even make the undercard debate under criteria released Wednesday by CNBC ahead of its Oct. 28 GOP presidential debate. The rules would limit the prime-time debate to any candidates polling above 3 percent. That's of an average of national polls released between Sept. 17 and Oct. 21. Surveys from NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, CNN and Bloomberg will be used to make the determination. To quality for the undercard debate, candidates must pull in at least 1 percent support in any of...

Donald Trump boasted several times that the amazing ratings both Fox News and CNN enjoyed while hosting the first two Republican presidential debates is primarily due to his presence in them, and after seeing the viewership numbers from The Donald’s appearance on 60 Minutes the other night, he might be right. Kipp Jones of Breitbart reports. “Trump’s Sunday evening interview with 60 Minutes, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin was also interviewed by Charlie Rose, brought in big ratings for CBS, which finished Rand Paul only behind NBC’s Sunday Night Football.” “…Scott Pelley’s sit-down with GOP frontrunner Donald Trump brought...

By October 28th, we’ll be four full months into Trumpmania and will have shed, at a minimum, two of the most successful Republican governors in America from the field. Let’s either do one big debate with all the candidates left or face the hard reality that we’re never going to have a President Pataki or President Graham by culling the asterisk candidates. Another undercard debate isn’t going to help anyone who didn’t make it out of the first two. In fact, didn’t Chuck Todd say just a few days ago that NBC felt no pressure to feature 10 or 11...

Rand Paul is right: Cruz's career in the Senate is "done for." Once he leaves, he can become a full-time grafter.I’m not sure when it started, but at some point the Republican Party ceded the business of governance to the Democrats. Maybe it began with the Tea Party movement or Fox News or the larger conservative media-industrial complex – I honestly don’t know. But it’s clear now that the GOP is no longer a legitimate governing party. A party that allows rank neophytes like Herman Cain and Donald Trump and Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina to run for the highest...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that Donald Trump is holding his ground- at least compared to where he was in the state six weeks ago. Trump leads with 26% to 21% for Ben Carson, 12% for Carly Fiorina, 10% for Marco Rubio, 9% for Ted Cruz, 6% for Mike Huckabee, 5% for Jeb Bush, 4% for John Kasich, and 2% for Chris Christie. Rounding out the field are Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal at 1%, and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rand Paul all at less than 1%. Trump's 26% is almost identical to his 24% standing...