Rand Paul's Heading Deep Into Democratic Terrain: Wants to lure young and black voters to the GOP.

National Journal ^ | 03/20/2014 | Shane Goldmacher

[SeekAndFind]

The conservative 2016 contender wants to lure young and black voters to the GOP, so he's taking his message to them. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BERKELEY, Calif. – Rand Paul's swing through Berkeley is just the beginning of his foray into traditionally Democratic territory.

After his visit to this liberal stronghold, where he's speaking to students about the NSA and privacy, the Kentucky senator will make stops at the National Urban League in July and at the NAACP in the coming months, if an informal invitation from the group is made official. He's also plotting a trip to Chicago and Milwaukee, Paul said in an interview this week, where he plans to speak about education and "school choice."

It's all part of his effort to cast himself as the man who can broaden the appeal of the Republican Party ahead of a widely expected 2016 presidential run. Among the demographic groups that Paul is most furiously targeting are young voters and African-Americans.

"For the Republican Party to win again we need to go places we haven't been going, and we need to attract people we haven't been attracting. Part of that is the message, but part of that is also showing up," Paul told National Journal. "I think we need to show up in challenging circumstances, so you don't think of Berkeley as being a bastion of Republican politics and so I think it's a good place to go."

[bigdaddy45]

Clearly a guaranteed losing formula for the GOP

[basil]

I like Rand Paul-—mostly.

[Texas Eagle]

Unless the article is continued on another page or another website, I didn't see anything of substance as to how this attraction is going to be effected.

By osmosis perhaps?

[SeekAndFind]

Here's another article referring to Rand Paul's visit to Berkeley

Rand Paul: Sleeping with the Enemy at Berkeley

[Altura Ct.]

will make stops at the National Urban League in July and at the NAACP in the coming months

Just further proof of this colorblind society I always hear about.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“Clearly a guaranteed losing formula for the GOP”

Those groups should be voting for us.

[12th_Monkey]

A waste of time trying to lure black voters off the Democratic plantation.

Young voters are practically worthless because of the influence of a state education and socialist professors. Far as I’m concerned voting age should be raised to 25.

[House Atreides]

Rand Paul is slowly revealing himself to be an overachieving mediocrity and a panderer.

[LS]

Doubt it. I'm around college kids all day, all week. They respond to these kinds of messages. If it's Rand Paul vs. Hillary, I think Paul would win the 18-26 vote---not by a landslide, but he'd win it. His anti-drug criminalization stand is hugely popular with even law-abiding blacks who think the whole system is rigged through drug laws specifically against blacks.

I'm not ready to say he's the next president---way too long and way too many possible screwups, but I think as of now he's the frontrunner.

[Gaffer]

Now it’s down to just what freedoms and liberties (along with our blood, sweat and treasures) HE is willing to give to these desperately needed new GOP voters. One wonders also just how he’ll reconcile these costly endeavors with his penchant for weasel wording his intention to provide some level of Amnesty for the Mexicans (that includes the dubios “pathway to [that which shall not be mentioned])

[BenLurkin]

Black voters might agree with half, or all, that a Republican party stands for, but will shun it for as long as they associate it with people such as Colin Flaherty thatthey perceive to be closet KKK types.

[BlueStateRightist]

He’s playing to the media. Trying to neutralize them. Always a bad sign when a candidate cares too much about pleasing the leftist journalists. It is hard to trust Rand Paul.

[luvbach1]

I don’t see Paul or any conservative attracting the liberal Demonrat base with a conservative message. And watering down conservatism through the me-tooism already present in RINOS just to get votes (an effort which probably would fail anyway), accomplishes nothing good.

[Homer1]

At some point the issues have to trump identity politics

[Homer1]

as opposed to guys like Robert Byrd?

[BeadCounter]

I think Rand has had a bit of trouble in this area, the “lunch counter” episode and a few persons who worked for his campaign or had associations with him. Maybe this is pre-emptive. See Jack Hunter who helped Rand Paul in the book “The Tea Party goes to Washington”.

[BenLurkin]

And George Wallace.

Both famous for publicly “recanting” their segregationist views and embracing LBJ style handout programs.

[kevkrom]

Remember, going into these areas in terms of outreach has more of a payoff than might immediate appear. Yeah, you’re still going to lose the area 80-20 instead of 90-10, but that small swing in a high population area can make a big difference for a statewide total.

Plus, it may help sway some of the suburban LIVs by making your guys look less “scary” than the old-boy racist cariacture Republicans are typically painted as.

[lodi90]

Rand is trying to worm his kooky liberatarian ideas into the GOP establishment. He flips and flops trying to be on all sides of major issues like amnesty. His conservatism is as phony as $3 bill.