THE GOP’S MOST ELECTABLE CANDIDATE CAN’T FIND THE MOJO
|| By FITSNEWS || A week ago, we addressed the disappointing lack of forward motion coming from the presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Rand Paul – a libertarian-leaning “Republican” who was supposed to give the Grand Old Party a fresh new look.
Not to mention a better shot at winning the White House than any of the candidates being offered by the GOP establishment …
For whatever reason, though, Paul’s campaign simply isn’t gaining traction among the “Republican” primary electorate.
In fact it’s gotten so bad Paul’s aides are now venting about their problems in the media …
From a damning piece written by Alex Isenstadt of Politico …
Interviews with more than a dozen sources close to the Kentucky senator, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of an underfunded and understaffed campaign beaten down by low morale.
They described an operation that pitted a cerebral chief strategist against an intense campaign manager who once got into a physical altercation with the candidate’s bodyguard. And they portrayed an undisciplined politician who wasn’t willing to do what it took to win — a man who obsessed over trivial matters like flight times, peppered aides with demands for more time off from campaigning, and once chose to go on a spring-break jaunt rather than woo a powerful donor.
“It’s such a negative environment,” one Paul aide told Isenstadt. “Everyone is on edge, and no one is having any fun. They need to recapture some of their positive mojo, and fast.”
Wow …
What happened?
According to Isenstadt’s article, Paul is simply not motivated to do the things one must do in order to run for president – especially as a “Republican.” As a result he’s struggling to raise money and energize the grassroots army his father created – while presiding over an organization rife with internal squabbling.
“The senator had once hoped to develop an apparatus that would allow him to nationalize his political brand, but instead finds himself with a skeletal operation that has suffered from disorganization and dysfunction,” Isenstadt wrote, adding “the confusion starts at the top, and dates back to the campaign’s earliest days.”
As we noted last week, Paul’s candidacy has been a mixed bag in our opinion. He’s offered up some solid substance on the fiscal front, but he’s been less than impressive on liberty issues and has taken major steps in the wrong direction when it comes to foreign policy.
He’s been playing to the crowd in other words … running to win over a certain subset of the GOP electorate rather than campaigning on what’s best for the country as a whole.
We wish Paul had campaigned as an independent. And done so aggressively.
As the rise of Donald Trump continues to demonstrate, there is widespread willingness within the GOP electorate to embrace non-establishment candidates who buck “Republican” orthodoxy.
In other words, Trump is riding the wave Paul should have caught months ago … but didn’t.
A year ago we assessed the underlying dilemma associated with Paul’s presidential prospects … again, as a “Republican.”
We referred to his bid as trying “to shove free thinking capitalists into the same tent as corporate cronyists and sanctimonious moralizers.”
That was going to be a tall order under the best of circumstances – presuming a deeply committed candidate and a well-oiled machine implementing his directives. Such a synthesis is impossible if the candidate is half-assing it – and the team around him is struggling to find cohesion.
43 comments
That’s what you get most of the time when you’re a flip-flopper with no principles. (even if the principles are unsound, no one likes a prolific flip flopper)
No respect, no suppporters. Donald Trump drank Rand’s milkshake.
I’m glad personally. That why the media built up false notion that Rand Paul is a “libertarian” doesn’t have to be addressed….it can be ignored, just like Rand.
At what point must he file for re-election for Senate? That we probably be the day he drops out. At the moment at least, he can’t do both and Democrats control the Legislature, so it isn’t likely to change.
Democrats control the ‘Legislature’? What are you smoking, dipshit?
Democrats control the Kentucky House of Representatives. That’s all they need to control to stop Rand supporters from changing the law that dictates a person’s name may only appear for one office on a ballot.
And they control the Governorship, at least until January, if not longer.
The Republicans can hold a caucus, separate from the primary to pick a Senate candidate, thus putting of his decision to see if his candidacy is still viable.
The law is clear: a candidate cannot be on the same ballot for two different offices in Kentucky. Any candidate winning the Kentucky Republican Senate primary would have to withdraw for a caucus to appoint a replacement.
Of course, Paul could decline to be on the Kentucky Republican primary ballot for President, avoiding the problem in Kentucky, without withdrawing from the primaries in other states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Kentucky,_2016
Incumbent Republican Senator Rand Paul filed for re-election in April 2011, and is also running forPresident of the United States in 2016.
If Paul does become the Republican presidential (or vice-presidential) nominee, state law prohibits him from simultaneously running for re-election.
If Paul does become the Republican presidential (or vice-presidential) nominee, state law prohibits him from simultaneously running for re-election.[3] In March 2014, the Republican-controlled Kentucky Senatepassed a bill that would allow Paul to run for both offices, but the Democratic-controlled Kentucky House of Representatives declined to take it up.[4][5][6] Paul spent his own campaign money in the 2014 legislative elections, helping Republican candidates for the State House in the hopes of flipping the chamber, thus allowing the legislature to pass the bill (Democratic Governor Steve Beshear’s veto can be overridden with a simple majority).[7][8] However, the Democrats retained their 54-46 majority in the State House.[9][10][11]
Paul is running for both president and re-election, and may consider several options to get around the law preventing him from appearing twice on the ballot, perhaps dropping his presidential bid to focus on re-election if it becomes clear by the May 2016 Kentucky primary that he will not win the nomination. His supporters have also claimed that the law does not apply to federal offices and have suggested that changing the May Kentucky presidential primaries to March caucuses would allow Paul to run for re-election and continue to seek the presidential nomination.[12] However, this option would only work until the presidential primaries were over, as he would still have to appear on the ballot twice in November if he won the Republican presidential nomination. Other options open to him include running for both offices and “daring” Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes to remove him from the ballot; attempting to replace Grimes in the 2015 elections with a Republican Secretary of State who would not enforce the law; filing a lawsuit against the law; and, assuming he wins the presidential nomination, running for president in every state except for Kentucky, where he runs for re-election and hope that he could win the presidency without Kentucky’s electoral college votes.[13]
In a letter to Kentucky Republicans in February 2015, Paul asked them to allow him the same option afforded to Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who ran for re-election at the same time as Vice President on Mitt Romney’s ticket.[14] David M. Drucker of The Washington Examinerreported in the same month that Kentucky Republican leaders were concerned that Paul’s actions could mean that if he wins the Republican presidential nomination and is renominated for the Senate, he could either be disqualified from the Senate ballot and the state party blocked from replacing him, which would hand the seat to the Democrats, or he could be disqualified from the presidential ballot, which would see the Democratic presidential nominee pick up Kentucky’s 8 electoral college votes.[15]
“THE GOP’S MOST ELECTABLE CANDIDATE”
That’s debatable.
He’d be the most electable if the only one running against him was his dad.
Rand Paul NEVER was the most electable candidate.Frankly weird and his daddy would keep him at 40%.
I knew FITSNews would soil its diaper when Rand Demanded the DEFUNDING of Planned parenthood (aka Baby Butcher Inc.) And Rand told yall’s candidate Hillary, to give back the donations PP gave to her. They are learning from Trump, how to rip you apart.
Faux Libertarians will always show their hand when you go after their gods.
Rand should be praised for defining PP and Hillary. Evil.
And that’s why they are going after Rand now. That PP scandal has legs. And they are horrible at dealing w/ the reality of a scandal, because the media protects them so much. They are clueless.
It is beyond laughable that you have jumped on Trump’s clown wagon. But it does fit a pattern. All that money he has given to Hillary’s campaign and to the Clinton Foundation, and those pictures of him all chummy with the Clintons at his wedding, feed into the hypocrisy of the low-information right wing voter. It is no doubt fun to have Trump in the race….the implosion is going to be more interesting.
What matters is that you SUCK Obama’s DICK, yet you piss your panties, with shit running down your leg, trying to deflect, as the country is in a fucking mess, w/ no jobs and hungry families…all because ignorant Fucks like you worship any god the media tells you to.
And you hate me because I’ve told people you are a fucking idiot for 6-plus years, and you have been proven to be, and then some.
What anyone thinks about Trump won’t change what you are. You are a stupid, failed and anti-American piece of shit. And if you had any pride, you’d get your lazy effeminate, liberal ass out of a country that was built on hard work and freedom. You don’t believe in liberty or morality, so you do not DESERVE the right to exist here, that we generously extend to TRASH like you.
dick sucking-check
asian poo/pee fetish-check
random capitalization-check
latent homosexual tendencies-check
Tango detected!
Tango detected!
Emergency! Emergency!
“…of him all chummy with the Clintons at his wedding, feed into the hypocrisy of the low-information right wing voter.”
Hey, SR, here he is!
I knocked your stupid ass into a different persona, huh? (:
Haha! And I’ve knocked yours into many, Sybil.
Sounds like an excerpt from Andy Shain’s book about Sanford
Barton Swaim. Yeah, that’s what I meant.
Have your supporters curb stomp more activists. Nothing screams electability like your crazed followers violently assaulting someone on camera.
Get an even goofier haircut. Someone has to secure the nerd demographic.
Do more speeches in front of small crowds with even more token black guys up front to prove your street cred to the minorities. Make sure you keep hiring racist campaign workers to keep the kooky skinhead followers, though.
Start selling doomsday predictions like your dad has been doing for well over 30 years, whether it takes 5 years or 500 years you’ll be proven right eventually!
Talk about how you hate interventionism out of one side of your mouth, and talk about how you love interventionism out of the other side. You’ll get everybody’s vote!
For more about Rand’s friends: http://www.barefootandprogressive.com/2010/04/a-closer-look-at-rand-pauls-militia-friends.html
He already has the stupid looking hair like Trump, so maybe he just needs to start loudly blurting every bigoted brain fart that bubbles up. Republican voters love that stuff!
In all fairness, he is cuter than Trump. Not saying much, but….
This is a shame. As a Ron Paul devotee skeptical of Rand, I thought his campaign kickoff event was promising. But he really fell by the wayside. He’s still the best candidate in the GOP field (I know, that doesn’t say much), but he’s not getting any of my support.
That’s the guy who has the best chance of becoming president? OK?
He has plenty of time to redeem himself in my eyes. But he has to earn it. His effort to appeal to everybody has turned him into a nobody.
He can’t, his campaign for POTUS is done. Too much pandering and I can’t imagine anyone who has confidence in him at this point.
GET A BEST TOP256-CAREER ::: @1md7.
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Not! …
ALL of the other republicans are in the same boat.
At least Paul has a plan everyone should like: A Flat Income Tax. (Of interest: What the Donald will say to that.)
Everyone?? Everyone should like a tax plan designed to increase the middle class’s share of the tax burden and cut the taxes of the mega wealthy. The Flat Tax is nothing more than a standard GOP tax cuts for the wealthy, benefits cuts for the middle class; But the right wing will be duped into believing otherwise.
He should adopt Donald’s plan. Become President, have America declare Bankruptcy, then go the American government and ask for a bailout – and then replace union workers with illegals like in Atlantic City. Seems like a workable plan.
Will Folks has been a blogger too long: out of politics too long. He and the commenters completely ignore what Paul’s aides said.
Rules of politics
1. WIN
2. Refer to rule 1
If Paul does not want to put in the time necessary: is not a good campaigner: or campaign manager and fund raiser, it does not matter where he stands on the issues.
He can talk until the cows come home. If he starts to get traction his ties to the Southern Avenger and other racist apologists will come out and his old supporters know it. No reason to throw away your vote on a guaranteed loser.
People say Obama thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room.
Well, DR. Rand Paul really, really, really thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room.
He thought he could go to Howard University and tell black people what their history and the history of the Republican Party really was and they literally groaned at what he said because he was soooo condescending while telling them what they grew up learning.
He’s giving anti-choice speeches TODAY, proving that all his Libertarian claptrap talk of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ stops short of a woman’s body.
He has way less elective experience than Barack Obama had when he was elected president…and, 6 1/2 years in, people on the right are still obsessed with Obama’s lack of time in the US Senate.
Rand thought he could go to the Senate, do some grandstanding phony filibusters, pull in the pot heads and his daddy’s militia types and not have to work for the nomination. He thought he would be anointed. Particularly, after the stupid national political press, ever obsessed with any momentarily ‘bipartisan’ Republican unicorn, elevated him to a status no freshman senator had earned or deserved.
Rand didn’t realize he’s in the party of stupid and crazy and 16 people are out to prove it… and, he’s only one of ’em. Plus, the national political press has ADD and has moved on to the latest loon. But, hey, like 2012, there should be a new one every few weeks between now and the first primary and Rand may float to the surface again.
Spot on, especially the first paragraph. BTW, Rand was campaigning in Charleston a couple of days ago, and there were a lot of empty chairs in the room. Of course, right now I think we could catch any of the candidates speak here in S.C. without waiting in line. Except for Trump. That would be a circus.
Your candidate is Hillary. Hahahahahaha.
and it was Obama before. Twice!
Overwhelming majority of Americans are anti-illegal alien and amnesty. And then when voters gave back total control of Congress to the GOP, only to be stabbed in the back and spit on, what would one expect? Paul is part of the career politicians that Americans both distrust and hate.
Just cucking along….By the way Will, there is still time to atone. #cuckservative
When one of Rand’s first initiatives, if elected, was spouted as overturning Row v. Wade, he lost the middle vote. I’m not sure what Rand is, but it isn’t libertarian nor republican. Maybe an independent?