Nashua, N.H.
A wave of discomfort moved through the ballroom at the Crowne Plaza hotel when Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator running for president, proclaimed, “The terrorist could be you.”
The older, conservative crowd at the New Hampshire GOP’s Republican Leadership Summit on Saturday didn’t seem to know what to think at first. Paul wasn’t suggesting Patty from Portsmouth actually is a terrorist. The Kentucky Republican’s point was that the federal government’s disregard for rule of law and the right to a speedy trial for those accused of terrorism is a slippery slope. The feds are targeting Americans with names like Mohammed right now, Paul was implying, but what if the government decided a gun-owner from rural New Hampshire, say, was dangerous to the nation?
