All of Rep. Ron Paul’s t-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign buttons would read “Ron Paul was right,” if U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was writing the slogans for his father’s 2012 Republican presidential campaign.
When asked Wednesday during a stump speech in Waterloo whether witnessing the spread of his ideas into mainstream political dialogue brought him a sense of personal vindication, Texan Ron Paul declined to “toot his own horn.”
But Rand Paul grabbed the microphone to object.
“I’m going to disagree completely and say that we should do some gloating. The slogan for the campaign should be ‘Ron Paul was right,’” he told the audience of 80 gathered in the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center.
After two unsuccessful bids for presidency in 1988 and 2008, Ron Paul is currently polling third in Iowa, and his son said the new-found popularity reflects a faith in his knowledge of the economy.
“He predicted the housing boom, he predicted the housing crisis and the massive debt crisis that we’re now in, and we need someone who actually has an understanding of the economy to lead our country,” Rand Paul said.
Ron Paul attracted 16 percent of support in a Rasmussen Reports survey of likely Iowa caucus-goers, behind Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who won 22 percent, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who polled second with 21 percent. The poll was conducted Aug. 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
Rand Paul, a 48-year-old freshman senator, who is touring Iowa this week to stump for his 75-year-old father, described Ron Paul as a “voice of reason” who has brought fiscal restraint and constitutional knowledge to Congress during his 23-year tenure.
He offered the 2008 bailout of American International Group Inc., an $85 billion loan to one of the world’s biggest insurers, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s repeated requests for federal government loans as an example of the federal overreach Paul opposed during times of financial crisis.
“He has been a solid voice through all of this, thick and thin,” said Rand Paul.
The elder Paul’s speech explained his stance against borrowing and bailouts with an analogy about personal spending.
“If you had a boat, three cars and a fancy house, and the banks wouldn’t loan you any more money, don’t you think you would get rid of a car or two and work hard and start paying your debt down?” he asked the crowd.
Both Pauls emphasized the need to cut federal spending, balance the budget and reject compromise on shrinking the size of the government.
The government cuts included in the debt ceiling deal, which both Pauls voted against, will not reduce Washington’s spending enough to make a noticeable difference, they said.
Rand had to cancel a scheduled Iowa visit earlier this month to be in Washington, D.C., for the vote.
It is unfair to blame lawmakers, who took a stand against the deal, which raised the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion, for the Standard & Poor’s credit downgrade Friday, Rand Paul said.
In a release issued by the financial ratings company when it downgraded the United States from AAA to AA+, Standard & Poor’s characterized the problem as a changed view of “the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Obama administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government’s debt dynamics any time soon.”
The Kentucky senator said faulting the Tea Party movement for current economic woes is like “blaming the fireman for fires.”
He gave his father credit for being the “father of the tea party” and spent much of the hour-long appearance explaining the motivations and goals of the movement.
On Tuesday, tea party of Iowa founder Ryan Rhodes endorsed Bachmann as his pick for 2012. In a release, he called her a “genuine conservative.”
When asked by IowaPolitics.com what the endorsement meant for the campaign, Ron Paul laughed and said the move “probably wasn’t a big deal,” because this was the first he had heard of it.
“It can’t hurt (Bachmann), and it wouldn’t necessarily help us,” he said. “The tea party is not a monolith at all, and that’s what is great about it.”
Rand Paul echoed his father’s assessment, saying that because the movement was decentralized, an endorsement may not carry a wave of votes.
Cedar Falls resident Judd Saul, who leads the Cedar Valley tea party movement, agreed with the Pauls.
“I don’t believe the tea party should endorse candidates. The tea party’s job is to educate and wake people up and let them make their own decisions,” said the 32-year-old, who was handing out copies of the Constitution to attendees after the speech.
Of Rhodes, he said: “I love him. He’s a great guy. He’s a friend of mine, but I think it’s irresponsible for somebody like the tea party to come out and endorse a candidate. That’s not our job.”
Steve Hoodjer, 30, of Parkersburg, plays an active role in the Butler County Republican Party. He said Paul’s campaign themes had migrated into the mainstream of Republican dialogue.
Hoodjer, vice president of Agilite, a company that makes military combat gear, approached Paul after his speech to invite him to a fundraiser for Butler County.
“His message is resonating to the point, where a county party would consider him as a speaker,” Hoodjer said. “They probably would have, you know, locked the door, if they heard he was coming to a meeting four years ago.”
Hannah Hess covers politics for IowaPolitics.com, which is associated with the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.
