Posted on 03/07/2014 2:06:29 PM PST by Red Badger
One year after his filibuster, the Paul love at CPAC is stronger than ever.
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—A year after his 13-hour filibuster won the hearts of young conservatives just a week ahead of the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference, the fandom for Sen. Rand Paul here has only grown.
Paul gave a speech Friday before the first standing-room-only crowd at the conference so far, asking a cheering audience, "Will you, America's next generation of liberty-lovers, will you stand and be heard?"
Following his typical style, Paul's speech focused largely on personal freedom, the Fourth Amendment, and rights he alleged are being usurped by the Obama administration, while avoiding the tricky topic of foreign policy, where his libertarian views are not as widely accepted by conservatives here.
Paul's biggest applause line of the afternoon—the biggest applause line at CPAC so far—came during his discussion of what he perceived as President Obama's failures, particularly at the National Security Agency. "As our voices rise in protest, the NSA monitors your every phone call. if you have a cell phone, you are under surveillance. I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their damn business," he said to loud cheers.
Paul continued an assault on Obama's record, getting laughs when he asked how history will remember the president, and later quoting Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters in asking whether former supporters of the president now believed they had "trade[d] your heroes for your ghosts? … Did they get you to exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
"I don't question President Obama's motives," Paul added, "but history will remember his timid defense of liberty."
Like his father, who was known to pack conservative conferences with supporters, the younger Paul has shown a striking ability to bring in engaged activists. In the packed hallways of the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center over the last two days, the bright red-and-black "Stand With Rand" gear easily overshadows the few dozen Ted Cruz stickers and Ben Carson buttons adorning attendees' lapels.
Paul's team didn't have its own booth at CPAC this year, but the Young Americans for Liberty—which sold "I Stand With Rand" shirts and gave away stickers and posters—was easily the most crowded of the booths at this year's event, with dozens of largely young conservatives waiting patiently in line for their Rand gear throughout the conference up to now. Another group installed a life-sized cutout of the senator for photo ops, an honor that was only accorded to Paul and William F. Buckley.
Young Americans for Liberty Executive Director Jeff Frazee said that the booth was even more packed than at last year's event. The group gave away each and every one of the 1,100 T-shirts they brought with them by early Friday afternoon, Frazee said. The group's goal before the event was to sell 250 CPAC tickets through their website, he added. They sold more than 460.
Posters aren't allowed into the main ballroom where Paul took the stage Friday afternoon, but even an hour before his speech more than 30 "Stand With Rand" signs were lying on the floor outside the entrance, having been confiscated by security staff. Several made it into the room, though, thanks in part to a few Young Americans for Liberty volunteers who guided activists in how best to hide their signs to hold up during the speech.
Paul's book is easily the best-selling title this year, according to volunteers manning CPAC's bookstore, and his book-signing event Friday afternoon was crowded with activists dressed in full "Stand With Rand" gear.
And stand they did. As Paul wrapped up on Friday, he reminded the audience of his popular filibuster to a standing ovation. "It's a time for boldness and action. The time is now. Stand with me, stand together for liberty," he said, before exiting the stage.
The most important aspect of this speech: RAND PAUL SPOKE LOUD AND CLEAR ABOUT DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL.
When when when will Americans wake up to this travesty? Maybe now, but I see the article doesn’t even mention it. Everyone has always been more interested in the NSA spying issue. It’s important too, but the detention issue has been ignored.
Don’t let the brouhaha over the candidate or the speech obscure this issue. Bravo, Senator Paul. God bless you.
He did point out that liberty is the prerequisite for economic health.
I hope it doesn’t come down to having to vote for him for president. We will all realize quite quickly that he is not all he pretends to be. That is all I will say on this for now, but I am quite hacked at his tricks.
Senator Paul has figured out that young voters are deserting the Democrat Party, and President Obama, in droves over the NSA snooping scandal, and he speaks directly to them on that issue.
Overall, I’m impressed with the depth of candidates for 2016 over those we had in 2012. Paul, Rubio, Cruz, Walker, even Jeb Bush, are far stronger candidates than Romney, Cain, Santorum, etc., in 2012 and certainly more so than Dole and McCain in earlier years.
Hopefully, we won’t get Christie shoved down our throats the way we got Romney, McCain, and Dole in the past.
I find myself wondering if the likes of Perry, Huckabee, and Palin shouldn’t sit this one out and see what the new kids on the block can accomplish.
That’s exactly wrong!
Good grief.———————
So sez “National Journal?” Pardon me while I roll my eyes to the next county....
Rand is his own person. His father or his father's supporters has nothing to do with his accomplishments.
CPAC seems to be like the Iowa caucuses — recent winners don’t seem to get very far in the primaries.
They both seem like a lot of media whoopla that ends up being rather meaningless when the actual primary season gets going.
Oh, c’mon! You’re saying he’d be a US Senator today without being his father’s son and his followers? Pull the other one, it has bells on it.
I think the answer to that is “yes.” After all, he won statewide as a Senator. His father was a Congressman.
Sure, he learned much from his father, but he is, to my mind, a far more attractive candidate than his father ever was.
Senator Paul is the most likely candidate to peel away Democrat voters among the young, Hispanics, blacks, and probably women, at least the younger ones.
And his clear intent to defend the Constitution, as written, will appeal to most traditional GOP voters today.
He’s obviously smart, capable, and an excellent speaker. We could do worse. As I said earlier, I’m impressed with the depth of the field and its quality this time around. We won’t likely be casting around for another Herman Cain in the middle of the primaries with this bunch to choose from.
Although we might be trying to beat down Christie in the process...
I would add, statewide in a different state.
Thanks for concluding that the Tea Party supporters that overwhelmingly supported Rand are not the wild-eyed white supremacist 9/11 Truthers that you like and others here like to concoct. Yes, he had coattails from the old man, but by and large Ron stayed out of Rand's way.
So his father’s supporters (many of whom don’t live in Texas) were unable to send him money to run in Kentucky?
I can show you dozens of pictures with "Ron Paul" and 9/11 truther and racist/anti-Semitic sayings side-by-side without breaking a sweat. Are you saying they're all photoshopped or some kind of media conspiracy? Just like "all those Obamacare victims are liars"?
Very interesting !
Thanks for posting the link to that video, although I’m almost certainly doing so for reasons other than you intended.
I watched the entire video. Senator Paul is a sincere legislator trying to right wrongs and injustices. Anyone watching the video can figure that out. He also, in that one speech, offered more support to blacks and Hispanics than our President has in his entire presidency.
I also noted that after he made the reference to President Obama that you cited, that he hesitated for a moment, probably playing back in his head the way his quote would be used by his GOP opponents. Clearly, his intent was to say that a future, first black, President of the United States could have been jailed for a minor drug offense and never thereafter have been elected.
While you might justifiably think, in this particular case, that it’s too bad a young Obama didn’t get caught, tried and convicted so that we could have avoided the travesty of his Presidency, that is hardly the point that Senator Paul was making. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he was speaking to squelching potential, the same as with the rest of his excellent speech.
Yeah! Let’s all bash one of the most conservative Senators we have! That’s the ticket.
Sure they were. That hardly makes your case, however.
Show us some of the pix linking Senator Paul to the 9/11 Truthers, etc.
My guess is that you’ll have trouble doing so, because Senator Paul is his own man, and a far better politician than his father with a lot more sense.
Tell me this. What will happen to the lock on the black vote the Dems now have if a future President Paul were to seriously address the injustices he brought up in that video being discussed above? The man has better political instincts than most, in my opinion, and is likely to expand the GOP the stronger he gets.
Please do, and make sure that they were actually at Ron Paul rallies instead of supporters doing these things on their own.
Are you saying they're all photoshopped or some kind of media conspiracy? Just like "all those Obamacare victims are liars"?
Oh, not at all. Dr. Paul had his kooky supporters. But what percentage of these kooks actually represented Paul or his supporters? Probably less than one-tenth of one percent. I was at Paul's rallies in 2008, the people there were no different from today's Tea Party supporters. In fact, many Tea Party supporters got their start in supporting Ron Paul.
Paul has had a great influence on the Tea Party and in bringing the limited government debate back into the GOP fold. No amount of hating is going to change that.
Were you a Ron Paul supporter?
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