Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Handicapping 2016: Rand Paul

David Corn at Mother Jones comes across a fascinating video of Rand Paul:




I can't say I have much complaint with Rand Paul's narrative here or his interpretation of Dick Cheney's motivations. I've pretty much said the same sorts of things about the Iraq War, myself. But it's not the likes of me that Rand Paul would have to impress in a Republican presidential primary, is it? Especially when the Bush Era foreign policy neo-con in-crowd is still, unfathomably as I find it, popular.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Vixen,
the short answer is yes.

The thing that interests me about Rand Paul is that he is really the voice and the candidate of millennials.

I had occasion a short time ago to be involved with young millennials in the IT industry.

They were all big champions of Ron Paul. This group was disgusted with both the right and the left.

When I was a kid the new left was the big thing in the US's youth culture -- long ago and far away. The millennials feel that the right and left are as full of crap as a Christmas goose and are looking for something new and different that distances itself to some extent from the party of either Al Sharpton or Dick Cheney.

Rand Paul may fit the bill. I told people about Ron Paul, that he would not win the presidency, but he may initiate a new political movement that bears fruit later somewhat like Barry Goldwater.

You have to remember that all the political calculation and categorization go on among people directly involved in politics or those who follow politics.

The vast majority of people in the country do not give a tinker's damn about all these pissy little snarks, turf wars, slander, and propaganda. Most Republicans would feel fine about Rand Paul.

--Formerly Amherst

Vixen Strangely said...

I think there's a lot to be said for the idea that Rand Paul could be influential in changing the way we talk about military affairs from the right, which would be an interesting change--there's is a contractor-driven military/industrial culture that is not serving our best security interests as citizens or as taxpayers. There has to be an alternative to the McCain/Graham way of looking at things.

On economics issues though, I kind of see liberatrians as trying to clean out the stables by hacking at the stalls. Time will have to tell regarding whether this kind of video p-o's more hawkish members of his party.

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