Posted on 04/20/2015 6:57:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Call it the anti-Rand primary.
There are at least three Republicans who seem likely to run for president in part so they can attack Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s libertarian-leaning foreign policy stances on the campaign trail.
These anti-Rand candidates — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton and New York Rep. Peter King — are ramping up their criticism especially now that Paul has officially entered the race for the White House.
All three are the longest of long shots when it comes to actually winning their party’s nomination. But each of them — national security hawks who dismissively label Paul an “isolationist” — could cause issues for the senator by attacking his more restrained foreign policy views during nationally televised debates.
Asked about these attacks, one Paul adviser said in an email: “These politicians do a disservice to the American people when they mischaracterize Sen. Paul’s foreign policy views. Unsurprisingly, facts are not the strong suit of politicians to whom war is the only answer for every challenge.”
“These are the same politicians who claimed before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein supported al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks,” the Paul aide added. “Despite a worsening insurgency, these are the politicians who proclaimed in 2005 that in Iraq ‘things are changing for the better.’”
In recent weeks, the Graham-Bolton-King trio has pummeled Paul. “The Lindsey Graham view of foreign policy is going to beat Rand Paul’s libertarian view of foreign policy,” the South Carolina senator told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend, also saying there’s a “91 percent” chance he will challenge Paul in the GOP primary.
Appearing on Morning Joe on Monday, Graham continued going after Paul’s views on foreign policy: “Generally speaking, he’s been more wrong than right. He has a isolationist view of the world that I don’t share.”
Bolton, who served at the United Nations under George W. Bush and has traveled to events in Iowa and New Hampshire, recently suggested he doesn’t trust Paul when he takes more hawkish positions as of late, like when he recently said he supported an increase of military spending.
“On any given day, it’s hard to know where he will be,” Bolton told the Associated Press earlier this month of Paul. “I believe in redemption, and I hope he comes all the way over. But I just don’t know what’s at work in his mind.”
Speaking to The Daily Caller after November’s midterms, Bolton acknowledged he was thinking of running for president partly out of a concern about Paul’s influence in the party.
“I do think the threat of isolationism is still there in the party,” Bolton said. “And I think that’s something that is of very much concern to me.”
King, a New York Republican who serves on the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees, rails against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as much as he criticizes Paul. (He recently told Wolf Blitzer on CNN he would jump off a bridge if Cruz would become the Republican nominee for president).
“His views would basically remove the U.S. from having a real role to play in the world, and his mindset — when you look at things he’s said over the years, in effect blaming the United States for problems around the world, somehow that it’s our fault,” King said of Paul on CNN recently. “To me that’s a bad mindset for the commander-in-chief of the United States to be going into office with.”
Paul, for his part, is portraying these critics as warmongers.
“Unlike these politicians,” the Paul aide said, “Sen. Paul believes that a strong national defense doesn’t rush to send our men and women in uniform to war. He believes that America shouldn’t fight wars that aren’t authorized by Congress, and that there must be a clear objective for any intervention.”
Added the aide: “Sen. Paul’s principles have resonated with voters who believe in a thoughtful foreign policy, and Americans can see through the hypocrisy of Washington elites who rely on the military-industrial complex to fill their campaign, think tank, and PAC coffers.”
This ought to be an interesting primary if nothing else .... “a choice not an echo”. ;)
Great.
The other two do not count for much, but Bolton is yet another guy to split the conservative vote.
Rand is a libertardian just like his dad. He sure ain’t a conservative.
I stand with Ted
Rand has some interesting things to say but he’ll never be president.
I have tremendous respect for John Bolton... to the degree it is alarming that the other 2 are mentioned in the same line... but Bolton ought to stick with being the “President of Red Eye” for now. I can see him as a Secretary of State, in President Cruz’s cabinet. Pete King and Lindsay Graham? Well, I can see them tarred, feathered and ran out of D.C. on rails.
Ditto Rodamala
Red Eye Sucks without Gutfeld although Joann, well...
anyway, we are getting too crowded!! bush will take the nomination if we don’t all get behind one guy by a specified date. In other words, everyone but Cruz and Walker please leave the building. As for Rubio, I don’t know what is truth and what’s not anymore He could have been president.
Yep, this will be a big boy primary.
If we are lucky and the flow is passionate and serious without turning ugly or counterproductive, then that alone may wake up some American voters to the depth and potential of the current republican party, in contrast to the democrats.
The Cruz Awakening
When you snooze you lose without Cruz..
We should thank Rand Paul for being the one to draw the flies.
Otherwise, it would be a full out engagement aimed at knocking out Ted Cruz.
A field this talented and already this well funded is an answer to prayer, if they can stay standing together long enough to all keep firing at Hillary, and dividing the attention of the media and talking solutions to get us out of the Obama take down, I’m all for it.
No vote is cast until February, 2016. It’s open range time now.
Eventually, this crew of candidates will hit the target. The numbers of them are the only thing keeping Bush at under 30% approval among Republicans. These other candidates between them have a lot of supporters, and they are keeping Jeb Bush from gaining traction. However, Jeb is leading in the CNN poll by about 10 points. For what that’s worth.
ten? :( you make good points and I am not a smart enough man to know what’s best in the primary season. I do know I cant and wont vote for jeb.
I’d rather Hillary finish off the country I once loved and maybe from the destruction a new great Country can rise up from the ashes
I will never support Rand Paul. His foreign policy views are as terrible as Obamas’
More American soldiers taking sides in more Middle Eastern wars with no definition of victory,
with no intent to force unconditional surrender,
with rules of engagement that permit the enemy to taunt us from their 'hiding places',
with 'allies' who shoot our troops in the back without warning,
and with tens of billions poured down the rathole of "nation building".....
will doubtless find a congenial home in the Bolton/Graham/King camp.
There’s nothing wrong with your IQ, brother. Your posts prove that. And plenty of FReepers might disagree with me about keeping all our candidates moving on Hillary for awhile. We have to block Jeb and Hillary. To me, that takes manpower out there on the summer stump.
They say it’s clearly a state delegate race that comes down to about 3 states. If Hillary keeps Obama states in her camp, she wins. If we can turn one or two, and not lose any Romney states, we can win this.
We learned in the Bush-Gore race about delegates. Gore won the popular vote but with the Supreme Court we dodged a bullet and Bush won the delegate race, (taking a few counties in Florida). Gore was desperate. Yikes! Scareeey!
Interesting only to the extent that it is interesting to see how tortured the language is that he uses to hide his true libertarian beliefs
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