Rand Paul - populist?

[boneyard bill]

On the other hand, there we also many people in the Ron Paul camp in the 2012 campaign who were very frustrated with Ron Paul's insistence on stubbornly adhering to his own dogmas when a few changes in wording could have made his positions more salable. These people are enthusiastic about Rand because they think he has a much better chance to win and events so far are bearing that out.

Ya ... he doesn't actually have a chance to win anything. I remember during the last GOP primaries, various Paulites were going on about how a "proper" interpretation of the primary results showed the strong and dominating position that Paul v1.0 as in and how he was totally going to emerge either as the candidate or a king maker at the convention and all that. It was wishful thinking which was totally divorced from reality and delusions about v2.0's rising star are about the same.

I definitely think you are wrong on that one. The whole point of the links I cited are that the "establishment" is very, very worried that Rand Paul might win. No one is predicting that Paul will win at this point (except Chris Matthews, ironically, of MSNBC), but I think it is very presumptuous to assume that he has no chance to win. In fact, he's ahead in many polls, perhaps the majority of them. It's too early for that to be very meaningful, but it's not so early that they should be regarded a meaningless. More significantly, he typically leads polls in Iowa and New Hampshire which, if that holds up, would leave other candidates playing catch-up in the early balloting.

Here's the kicker. The American public, including most Republicans are sick and tired of all these wars and interventions. They aren't anti-intervention as Ron Paul was, but want it to be the last resort, not the first. So far, however, the voters of neither party have a choice on that issue. When they thought they had a choice, (Obama in 2008) they voted for him. But that proved to be change you couldn't believe in.

But with Rand, they now have a choice. That is what has the money establishment really worried. That's why they attack him as an "isolationist." But those attacks won't work in a campaign. For an opponent to attack Rand Paul as an isolationist, they have to proclaim themselves an interventionist, and that will cost them votes. In a debate, Rand would win that exchange.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Oh ya. I remember the GOP primary well. Good times.

Phantom Menace, dude. Think back on this conversation in a few years.