Rand Paul announced his candidacy for President today. Erick Erickson wrote a column today that mirrors my concerns about Rand Paul as prez.
Welcome to the Arena, Senator Paul
Erick Erickson (Diary) |
Today, in Kentucky, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is going to announce his campaign for President of the United States.
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This 2016 run has caused one unnoticed negative for conservatives. Since it became obvious that they’d be competing against each other in 2016, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz has had a less than stellar working relationship when it comes to advancing the conservative agenda. At least now it can be out there and the differences between the two can be aired.
Paul is going to have baggage that Cruz does not have. Paul backed McConnell against Matt Bevin in 2014 and McConnell is doing nothing now to reciprocate. Though McConnell won, it left a bad taste in the mouths of many conservative activists. Likewise, Rand Paul is going to have the shadow of his father lingering over him and will have to, again, show he is his own man. The zealous nature of many Ron Paul supporters keeps some from embracing Rand Paul and, concurrently, Team Paul has historically done awesome at winning straw polls, just not regular polls.
But Paul will be free of some baggage that Cruz has. Paul has gone out of his way to show he can work within establishment circles. Backing McConnell helped. Likewise, Paul has shown himself to be a less doctrinaire conservative, which will help him with the media, even if it does not with the base.
Many of my friends think Rand Paul operates as a closet Democrat. I think, in fact, he comes the closest to an authentic civil libertarian candidate in some time. He is willing to approach issues on race in ways other Republicans don’t, if only to mitigate prior attacks on him for his statements on civil rights legislation. He has also been willing to speak critically of American engagement abroad when most Republicans rah-rah any use of force.
Rand Paul is waay down my list of preferred candidates. Still, I admit that he’s better than Bush, Christi or Huckabee. I believe Paul would secure our borders…but that’s all. His and his father’s political views are isolationist following the Libertarian platform. That platform does not support a strong military.
Paul’s foreign policy would be a retreat to our shores. Our Navy would revert to a ‘brown-water’ navy from a ‘blue water’ navy. Without ‘foreign entanglements,’ the US would not need a large military. Paul would continue the deterioration of our military capability. That is a very dangerous attitude and I see no amelioration of that in Rand Paul.
The US has lost its leadership of the world. I do not see Rand Paul interested in fixing that situation.
The race is on!