Are the likes of Rand Paul and Russell Pearce becoming the face of the Republican Party? Let’s hope not. Paul, an ophthalmologist who recently became the Senate nominee from Kentucky, has already embroiled himself in controversy over his comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Pearce, the Arizona legislator who sponsored the state’s tough anti-illegal immigrant law, has now decided to target not only illegal immigrants but their U.S.-citizen children as well. Both men represent the soft underbelly of the populist movement that catapulted them to fame — and a danger to the future of the Republican Party.

Paul’s comments on the Civil Rights Act, which he has tried to soften in the ensuing days since he uttered them on the left-wing Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, were no mere faux pas. His simple answer to Maddow’s direct question, “Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?” was “Yes.” He went on to try to qualify his affirmative answer by saying he personally opposed discrimination of all sorts — including by private businesses. And he has since assured everyone that he doesn’t want to repeal the act’s public accommodations section (or presumably Title VII of the act, which prohibits discrimination in hiring).