Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., hasn’t had a lot of luck generating excitement for his presidential campaign, but he’s looking to change that Wednesday night at the second televised GOP primary debate.
The Kentucky senator is going to go hard after the current GOP front-runner, real estate mogul Donald Trump, with guns blazing.
“I think he deserves both barrels,” Paul told the Daily Caller this week in an interview. “I want to make sure everyone in the whole country knows he’s a fake conservative.”
The Tea Party-favored senator went after Trump in the first televised primary debate, but his blows did little to halt the hotelier’s meteoric rise in the polls. In fact, following the first GOP debate in August, Trump saw an immediate bump in his numbers, while Paul’s have only continued to slip.
“I think ultimately when voters fully grasp who he is and what he supports, I think they’ll run away with their hair on fire,” the senator said this week, likely previewing how he’ll come at Trump Wednesday evening.
“The message hasn’t penetrated yet that Donald Trump isn’t one of us,” he added. “He’s barely a Republican. He’s been a Democrat. He’s been a huge supporter of Harry Reid, Charlie Rangel.”
He also dinged Trump for his longstanding use of political graft.
“He’s the consummate insider,” Paul said, “buying and selling politicians.”
Despite his low polling numbers, the senator says he’s comfortable and confident with the direction of his presidential campaign, boasting that he has his “own niche that’s carved out quite well.”
“I’m the only one on the stage who has actually put forward a budget that balances,” Paul said. “I’m the only one really on the stage who stood up in defense of privacy, through the Fourth Amendment right to be left alone. I’m the only one on the stage who says, ‘you know what, I’m not for sending our sons and daughters back to war in Iraq.'”
Trump is far and away the leader of the GOP pack, leading in the polls by 30.5 percent to Paul’s 3.3 percent, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average.
