Posted on 07/06/2014 10:46:36 AM PDT by PoloSec
It’s widely been recognized that potential presidential candidate Rand Paul’s greatest weakness in terms of elect-ability is his foreign policy.
Which makes the results of recent polls even more surprising. From our friends at Rare:
According to a June Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, “58% of the Republican respondents said the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth it, compared with the 37% who said it was.” In just a year’s time 21 percent more people believe that war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth it.
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A related Journal/NBC/Annenberg survey conducted days later found similar erosion in views about Iraq found that “46% of Republicans said the war in Iraq wasn’t worth it, compared with the 44% who said it was.” What’s more, “63% [say] the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth it, compared with the 39% who held that view in January of 2013.”
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An April Wall Street Journal poll showed that 45 percent of Republicans think America should be less involved in world affairs, compared to 29 percent who believe the opposite.
So from the surveys above, it is pretty apparent that a large number of Republicans feel that our country’s two most recent wars were mistakes and that America is too involved in world affairs in general.
That sounds uncannily like something Senator Rand Paul would say; he recently deemed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East a “disaster” and regularly argues for less involvement in world affairs.
Before the party completely writes off Paul as a presidential contender, perhaps they should ask themselves: Are we sure we don’t agree with him?
Neither am I
Neither am I. Wondering about Mike Pence...
Both wars were won until El-Presidente surrendered. So, were they worth it in the end, of course not. They would have been had Obama not thrown away our victories.
Foreign policy is considerably larger and more complex than just getting into wars and excursions.
It’s been my opinion since the get go that we should have taken out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (as we did at the time) and then gotten out within months.
Similar thought on our Iraq nightmare. Take out Hussein without a effin year’s advance notice, clean out the WMDs, which were indeed there before the year’s advance notice (lunacy). Installed a western friendly head of state and left.
This whole neocon notion of nation building is utter crap and self destructive imperialism.
Sadly, although I supported Paul in the beginning, he has revealed himself to be another open borders politician. If there is one thing that turns me into a single issue voter, it’s border control and US sovereignty. They are sacrosanct - no compromise. Without those nothing else follows because there is no Republic.
We don’t have to be supporters of Rand Paul to argue that the Iraqi and Afghani wars were badly played out. I believe that Bush entered them in good faith, but they were poorly executed, mainly due to trying to build democracies in their place. They honestly did NOT understand that the ME has NO IDEA what democracy is, nor is it touted very highly in the Quran. Had they done their homework, they’d have opted for a stealth takedown of the leaders that are the blame for the mess in the ME, then they’d have left the country to sort it out...sort of like what is happening now, but it’s much uglier than it needed to be.
As for Rand Paul, he started out talking conservative, a different breed than his dad, but he has “evolved, if you will, into a double-tongued freak. He seems to support both tea party and establishment, coming closer to the establishment all the time, and less tea party. He doesn’t want us to notice, of course, so he speaks like a conservative at the beginning of issues, then switches sides before he votes. He is a snake in the grass. I’ve been watching him because we have donated a lot to him, but NO MORE! LIke I said, he is a snake in the grass! Beware!
This is a great example of illogic, how to distort or misrepresent.
e.g.
“According to a June Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, “58% of the Republican respondents said the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth it, compared with the 37% who said it was.” In just a year’s time 21 percent more people believe that war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth it.”
When the current administration decides to let the Taliban take over again, the answer to whether it was worth it changes.
Voters across the political spectrum are fed up with global meddling and fed up with being spied on. We're fed up with NO ONE capable of quick action.
That gives an opening for Rand Raul. He's an ADHD type outlier, a real possibility with a "mad as hell" electorate. Unless some constitutional conservative comes forward and actually DOES something, the questionable sanity of Rand Paul could appeal to voters.
JMHO. I thought he had potential, but he's way too mainstream with the ptb to get things done.
Paul rolled over on illegal immigration. He is unelectable.
Rand Slams Congress for Funding Egypt's Generals: 'How Does Your Conscience Feel Now?'Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. [by "anti-government activists" is meant church-burning Christian-murdering jihadists][Posted on 08/15/2013 5:44:10 PM PDT by Hoodat]
Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]
Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]
Rand Paul's immigration speech...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]
Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.
Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.
Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.
If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...
This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.
Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.
Rand Paul calls on conservatives to embrace immigration reformLatinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]
[but he's not in favor of amnesty, snicker, definition of is is]
Rand is a clown and surrogate for his daddy.
The Paul foreign policy is the just the other extreme, no better than Bush neocon way.
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