Posted on 04/03/2015 5:24:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
U.S. Senator Rand Paul is running for president … in fact, he announces his candidacy next week in Louisville, Kentucky. From there he travels to early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – including a big fundraiser in the Palmetto State the day after he announces.
As we write this, money is being collected. Speeches are being vetted.
He’s 100 percent in … and not only that, Paul is one of the few candidates in the race with (we believe) a path to victory. And one of the few candidates (we believe) to be worthy of real consideration.
Is he perfect? No. In fact we’ve blistered him in the past for being too cozy with the establishment at times. But when it comes down to the bread and butter issues that pro-freedom, pro-free market voters want to see addressed, Paul and fellow U.S. Senator Ted Cruz are head and shoulders above the rest of the “Republican” field.
In fact it’s not even close …
Anyway … why are we writing a story about Rand Paul being “in?” Doesn’t everybody already know that?
Yes … well … sort of.
You have to remember, though, we write from a home base in South Carolina – a banana republic known for its thick drawls and thicker skulls. Down here things have a tendency to get, um, “mixed up” pretty easily.
Wanna see what we mean? Check out this recent exchange between a presidential candidate and a South Carolina voter (one who actually used to be a school teacher, believe it or not).
Yeah …
Anyway, exploiting this confederacy of ding-battedness is a perpetual stream of misinformation – particularly political misinformation. It’s all geared toward the whole “you can fool some of the people some of the time” construct … and in South Carolina, the pool of fools is deeper than it is anywhere else in America.
For real …
Enter the “Rand Paul isn’t running” social media campaign … which has been blowing up our Facebook and Twitter feed for the past week. It’s also been blowing up our email and text message “matrixes,” which were flooded with messages from political activists (and a few elected officials) seeking clarification as to Paul’s 2016 status.
The buzz reached a level earlier this week where we felt compelled to reach out to Paul’s people … who confirmed his imminent presidential announcement was a “go.” In fact one Paul supporter told FITS the “Rand isn’t running” chatter was being deliberately ginned up by Cruz supporters.
“It’s a suppression effort,” the source said, referring to the campaign as a “weak and transparent bid to pick up commitments.”
In addition to definitively stating that Paul was not running, these posts often included links back to prior news stories in which Paul offered qualified statements regarding his political future.
One of these stories? A four-month old post by Politico reporter Katie Glueck in which Paul said he wouldn’t run for president – unless he thought he could win.
“It’s ingenious, really,” one digital operative familiar with such campaigns told FITS. “Anyone with half a brain who clicks on the article (will see) what he said – and (will see) when he said it. But the context they are given before they click – if they even click – is what sets the table. That and a lot of people just forward the false narrative around without bothering to click.”
Indeed …
Over the weekend, FITS had two prominent Upstate, South Carolina political activists contact us asking if Paul was running. The next day – March 31 – a pair of Upstate lawmakers reached out to us asking if the rumor was true.
The misinformation worked, in other words … at least to a limited degree.
Obviously Paul will announce next week – putting the matter to bed. But did the “Rand isn’t running” rumor cost him a local endorsement or two? Or cause a fundraiser to hold off on stroking a check? Or get certain activists lined up behind another candidate?
If so … it worked.
Completely agree. We just gotta keep it under our hat.
What issues would bring over democrats?
Can you name a half dozen or more of them that would ge them to abandon their party?
Paul has an overriding “Anti-Government” theme.
1. NSA spying on Americans.
2. Crony Capitalism
3. Audit the FED
4. End the FED
5. American involvement overseas (I couldn’t disagree more)
6. Government regulations in general.
Please understand that there are some Democrats that want more government, but the voters I’m referring to are a much larger group that has a huge distrust of government.
As a Libertarian, Paul can exploit this fear of Government.
Sales 101; Know your audience.
Paul knows what drives them and can move them away from the current zombie state that they are in. Cruz can’t and shouldn’t go their. Cruz can’t go there because he has already been “Defined” by the Media. Defined as a “right-wing nut job”.
Which issues of the GOP is Paul changing, that will bring over a boatload of democrats to his new republican party?
So he will win over the anti-defense democrats who are already mostly conservative? I don’t think that is the niche, or else we wouldn’t all be rejecting him for his moving left/libertarian on social issues, he advises us to ‘evolve”, and become more flexible on abortion and gay marriage, and he implies that we are racists.
Isn’t his appeal to liberals, mostly based on his being liberal on social issues and national defense?
Isn’t it gay marriage and abortion, and all the other libertarian liberalism that is what is causing him to be rejected by conservatives?
Which issues of the GOP is Paul changing, that will bring over a boatload of democrats to his new republican party?
You’re funny.
I had to re-read your NEW question a second time.
Answer, a boat load of issues.
I think we can agree that the current cast of Rino’s are part of the “Issues” that need to be changed.
These Dems hate both parties and voted for 0bama twice because they hated Bush more.
If you consider any number of polls, more and more people are self identifying as Independent or libertarian.
This is really good news.
The first step is to move them away from the idea that the “Government” is the answer to their problems/concerns. They are doing this themselves but view the current Republicans as either Fascist or Racist or whatever. They don’t view Rand Paul as this. This is important.
Rand Paul has not been defined by the MSM as a crazy right wing fascist and therefore can actually be heard.
On the other hand, Rand Paul IS a right-wing nut job. Rand Paul has about as viable a path to the White House as I do. LOL!!!
Maybe not in the ozone zone. Where do you live, anyway?
I'm not a republican. I'm a conservative. I want a conservative to win. Republican and conservative aren't always the same thing. With Cruz it is. With the last general candidate, it wasn't.
Getting people to follow your rules is a long wait where a train don't come. People, especially conservatives these days, tend to ignore conventional logic and rules made by anyone else.
/johnny
I'm a conservative, not a republican, but the GOP-E wants to ignore the base and focus on a tiny demographic.
I guess concern trolls gotta be concerned.
/johnny
I’m not a Rand Paul supporter.
He’s has an appeal among people that are increasingly becoming distrustful of our Government.
These people need to be first and foremost moved away from being socialist zombies and they are ripe for the picking.
Paul can do this.
Don’t consider Rand as a candidate for himself, but as tool that can be used by a Cruz campaign to break down the door.
Paul won’t be bringing in “boat loads” of democrat voters, and his only appeal to the left, is his liberalism/libertarianism, on issues that he is anti-conservative on.
As a libertarian, you sing his praises and want him to campaign for president, but he needs to be kept from major influence in the GOP.
The media hates Rand Paul. There is not an MSM talking head out there that doesn’t try to marginalize him at every opportunity using their typical often unsaid but raised eye rows and other slick media tricks.
Their bosses obviously want an establishment hack willing to keep the status quo. Since I despise the media those types of underhanded actions make me more interested in him. I always self describe as conservative libertarian.
Anybody who doesn’t understand what Rand can bring as VP doesn’t want to win. P.S. and hint: The VP doesn’t do anything...
Ansell likes to antagonize and I like to antagonize him.
Sadly he tends to have a habit of misrepresenting what others say.
He fails to see a much bigger picture.
He fails in his understanding of the current culture.
He seems to think that those that do see the bigger picture are somehow compromising their conservative values.
You sound like a troll if you like to antagonize, you need to avoid doing that, and please don’t lie about me like you just did.
You are a libertarian and so my conservatism sets you off, in this case you have gotten very nasty about my opposing Paul, a man who I supported for the Senate, and still do, but not his running for president and moving the party left, as you desire.
Rand Paul has a series of foreign policy positions to rival the stupidity of Obama’s. No thanks.
I’d buy Paul as a kind of stalking horse. The problem with Paul’s electability is that for each voter he brings, he drives three away. If he could bring the voters he appeals to and successfully hand them off to someone without his negatives, it’s all good.
BTW, you have seen what the MSM has tried to do to Ted Criz (utterly unsuccessfully, IMO). Once they get ahold of Rand Paul, it will be a something to see. They will make him the unrecognizable bastard offspring of Hitler and Tokyo Rose.
The candidate best able to shrug off those kinds of MSM coordinated attacks is in fact Ted Cruz.
I am not interested in voting for Paul at all.
Cruz is a rebel and a conservative, Paul is establishment and libertarian.
Paul was big for Romney and McDonnell, and left Cochran alone, and is trying to move the party base to the left.
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