Posted on 03/11/2013 7:03:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Palm Beach, Fla. — Those who doubted that Rand Paul was will running for president need to change their minds after considering how he energized the conservative grass roots with his 13-hour Senate filibuster last week.
Paul took a narrow issue — as he put it, “whether an American can be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime” — and captured the attention of political activists. As social media lit up with praise for his efforts, many of his fellow senators joined him on the floor, in solidarity with his demand that the Obama administration answer a question it had legalistically evaded for days. Representative Keith Rothfus of Pennsylvania was part of a group of House members who went to the Senate floor to “stand with Rand.” “The atmosphere was electric, “ he says. “Republicans felt we were advancing.”
The day after the filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder capitulated and finally gave Paul a direct answer: “‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no.”
Rand Paul isn’t as direct when asked whether he is running for president, but he says he is “seriously” considering it. If he does enter the race, he will clearly do so by stepping out of what he views as an establishment straitjacket that keeps conservatives from communicating their message to young people, Hispanics, and disillusioned independents.
“We’ve got to appeal to younger voters, the West Coast, people who view Republicans as in league with crony capitalists and the wealthy, and those who are suspicious of endless foreign interventions,” he says. “Otherwise, we are going to become a niche product for red states.”
Much of the GOP establishment obviously resents Rand Paul’s arrival on the national stage. Take John McCain, who tangled frequently with Rand’s father, Ron Paul, when they both ran in the GOP primaries in 2008. A front-page photo in the New York Times captured him glowering as he happened to share an elevator with Rand Paul in the Capitol building last week. McCain told reporters that if the younger Paul “wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids.”
But at the annual Club for Growth meeting here in Palm Beach, it wasn’t kids in the audience who greeted Paul as a hero, giving him a standing ovation both before and after his talk last Friday. The Club for Growth is a group of sober-minded business owners and investors who have proved their political clout by helping elect tea-party-oriented senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Rand Paul himself.
Some Club members are already in Paul’s corner for 2016. “He has broadened his appeal to include three issues that 75 percent of the American people agree with,” says George Yeager, an investment counselor from New York. “He wants a balanced-budget amendment, term limits, and a questioning of mindless nation-building overseas.”
Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator who is now president of the Heritage Foundation, told Club members that he “couldn’t think of a more dramatic contrast between some senators having dinner with President Obama on the same night last week that Rand Paul and his allies were making their courageous stand.” In his view, “the balance of power in the Senate GOP caucus is shifting.” He noted that key members of the Senate leadership, such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Jerry Moran of Kansas, came to the Senate floor in support of Paul’s effort.
If Paul ran for president, he would no doubt be the underdog, given the Republican Party’s post-Reagan penchant for nominating only establishment figures. But two consecutive presidential defeats have discredited the establishment in the eyes of many activists.
Mallory Factor, who runs a popular “Monday Meeting” of conservative activists in Charleston, S.C., had Paul speak to his group recently and reported that the response was very favorable. “He has a fresh appeal,” Factor says. “And the mailing lists he inherits from his father’s two campaigns are a huge fundraising and organizational head start” in South Carolina and other states that will vote early in the 2016 nominating process.
The reaction in other early-voting states is also favorable. “I don’t think you can underestimate how big of a moment this was,” conservative Iowa talk-radio host Steve Deace told Politico, speaking of Paul’s filibuster. “If the Iowa caucuses were tomorrow, he would win in a landslide.”
Even Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 presidential effort, told Politico that Paul could be a formidable candidate. “I can’t tell you how many hours and meetings are devoted to discussing the candidate’s vision in a campaign,” said Schmidt. “Well, you wouldn’t have to do that with him. . . . He’s got the right combination of principles, oratory skills, smarts, and showmanship.”
Now that Paul has seized the limelight, he will begin a process of being grilled and dissected by a media that is largely hostile to his libertarian message. He delivers that message more smoothly and effectively than his father does — the elder Paul has been tagged at times as cranky — but Paul’s strength, his freshness, is also a potential weakness. After his upset GOP-primary win for the Senate in 2010, the neophyte Paul, who has held office for only two years, gave a now-infamous interview on MSNBC in which he disastrously questioned the constitutionality of parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Since then, Paul has done a better job of steering what he calls “a middle ground between pure libertarianism and traditional conservatism,” but some GOP leaders still view him as a loose cannon. One senator told me privately that if Paul runs, GOP voters would be unlikely to shake a sense that Paul “has a veiled radical agenda that would undermine the military, leave Israel in the lurch, and savage programs many people depend on.”
By all appearances, Paul is trying to assuage these misgivings. He recently met with the leadership of the American Israel Political Action Committee and made his first trip to Israel. He has put his legislative staff to work on veterans’ issues and pointed out that reforming the Pentagon will help ensure U.S. military strength.
Most important, he has developed a good relationship with Minority Leader McConnell, his fellow Kentuckian. Paul’s former campaign manager is now leading McConnell’s 2014 reelection effort, and McConnell has allowed Paul a great deal of freedom to offer amendments of his choosing on the Senate floor. All of this makes it harder for people to depict Paul as a fringe figure in the Senate.
But for all his efforts, some Republicans — those who blame the Tea Party for the GOP’s failure to take back the Senate from Democrats in 2012 — would probably treat a Paul candidacy as an insurgency they need to suppress. They will insist that Paul won’t appeal to women, moderates, and people who will be suspicious of his Kentucky drawl.
But even those who are hostile to Paul should welcome his candidacy. If his star-making filibuster is any indication, his entry in the race will help make the GOP attractive to younger voters and people who are traditionally suspicious of both major parties. For a party that clearly had an “outreach” problem to those voters in 2008 and 2012, that can only be helpful.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
“The Liberal Agenda Media chooses to oppose all good done, and promote ANY bad done by that same Republican Politician.”
The above statement could be restated as “No good deed goes unpunished.”
The Liberal Agenda Media and Left Wing GOP Elite Pigs McCain and Graham have the same goal: ‘Any Republican Elephant that rises up out of the swarming, fetid, GOP Elite Pig herd must be swiftly brought to his/her knees so that the GOP Elite Pigs can continue to be the loyal rubber stamps for the Democrat Jackasses.’
The return to Republican Principles is terrifying to the GOP Elite, and they will fight any attempt to restore dignity to the Republican National Committee, as McCain and Graham so aptly proved last week on the US Senate floor.
The yellow spine swine
Of the GOP E
Are the reason
That we lose our Liberty!
When Paul ran in the primary he was villified as a radical, as not conservative but a libertarian. I listened to him. He is not libertarian. He is Conservative. He is what Republican should be and could be. He is very nearly me in his conservative views. We don't perhaps see 100% eye to eye but we are a lot closer than anything that has been around in a while. I hope I have the chance to support him for president.
Was the filibuster a stunt? Perhaps, I don't know but I wish it was still going on. If we would filibuster every stupid thing that happens in the Senate perhaps we would get more respect. Having dinner with the president underscores to me what is wrong with the Republican old timers. I am glad that Mitch McConnell had enough sense to choose the right side and stood with Rand Paul.
I Stand with Rand!
No doubt the GOP Establishment is not comfortable with conservatives in their ranks. Thus the ousting of Tea Party reps from committees and the bad mouthing of high profile newbies in the news lately.
WADABUNCHAPUTZES!
SunkenCiv (Rand would have been worse, if you’re a dumb ass.)
Did he say so under oath?
That's a fear I have.
Yep. Pretty much everything you said...
I am a libertarian who lives conservatively by choice. Rand is a conservative who believes in the Constitution and it’s limits on government power.
He’s a step in the right direction and the best the GOP still has to offer. Period.
I stand with Rand.
Steve Deace is a crack pot. Why do they always go to him for his opinion?
I share your dream.
The GOP should stay with the tried and true members of the party.
McCain/Boehner 2016
The GOP should put its leaders in a position to win. The leadership of the GOP is the future of the party, so put them on the ticket.
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/Sarcasm
The GOP should change leadership, modernize by removing these GOPe fossils.
What these nutcases have done in Iowa is unbelievable.
Legalistically voters are to stupid to elect a person with logic and love of country.
Note Obama won twice.
Sorry but the electorate is nowhere near a place where RAND PAUL has any real shot at the presidency, any more than his father’s repeated attempts.
While he did tap disgust on BOTH sides of the isle over the drone program, he has to be able to tap from the left to really have a shot, and frankly far too many on that side flat out agree with the steady march to insolvency and socialism.
Until you see those casual democratic voters come to the realization that their party wants to make America European, no libertarian based argument will win general election, and the fact is most Democratic voters don’t want american to be Europe, but fail to realize that is exactly what the folks and party they keep voting for are doing.
It hurts to say this, but Rand Paul is taking the path that Sarah Palin _should have taken_ after leaving the governorship of Alaska...
“I stand with Rand...”
Kinda reminds me of 1968:
“Clean for Gene!”
Kiddin’ aside, Rand may represent as existential a threat to the party establishment as did Mr. McCarthy back then...
You mean he presented himself as a "compassionate conservative" - whatever that is.
As I was saying to my wife just the other day, any conservative leader who emerges now will find the full weight of the press AND the GOP-E lined up taking shots at him for four years. After years of that sort of sustained assault, he will be declared non-viable because of too much baggage. This applies to Rubio, Paul, Cruz, etc. They will get Palinized. If they stick their heads above ground, they will be chopped off. On the other hand, if they play along for the sake of retaining power, they will amount to nothing since as tea-party favorites the GOP-E will always marginilize and possibly try to primary them away. he best strategy for them is to stand up now, loudly, accept the fact that they will be attacked and called wacko-birds and maybe won't be able to become President but they might save the country. That's reward enough.
What could be more radical to a bunch of RINOs than someone who walks upright?
That was a very weird statement and contradictory, one can't be libertarian and conservative at the same time, that is why libertarians label themselves, to show that they are leftists on social issues and anti-conservative.
There is nothing "old fashioned" or conservative about being for abortion homosexualizing the military, gay marriage, gambling, porn, hookers and heroin, ending border controls and firing the Border Patrol and the INS and so on.
I don't think that republican women used to support those changes for America in the past, if they do today, then we are fully doomed.
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