When Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that he would be supporting Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson in the New Mexico U.S. Senate race over Republican candidate Mick Rich, many were surprised Paul broke party ranks.
They shouldn’t be.
Sure, it is unusual for any member of the two major parties to endorse a candidate in another party over their own. It is also true that this is the first time Paul has ever endorsed a non-GOP candidate.
It is also the first time it has made sense for the senator to do so.
“Paul’s endorsement is sure to add pressure on [Republican New Mexico U.S. Senate candidate] Mick Rich to step aside and give Johnson, the two-term former governor of the state, a clear shot at challenging what until now has been considered a safe Democratic seat,” writes Reason’s Matt Welch. “In the only poll taken since Johnson officially entered the race two weeks ago, the Libertarian was up on the Republican 21 percent to 11 percent (versus Phil Heinrich’s 39), and even held a slight edge among registered Republicans.”
While the Democrat still has the polling advantage, combining the Libertarian’s higher support (21 percent) with the Republican’s lesser support (11 percent) would obviously make Johnson a more formidable candidate. If victorious, an independent Sen. Gary Johnson would likely vote more often with Republicans than his Democrat predecessor, which would better serve the GOP.
But more importantly, Johnson would also likely vote with Paul on libertarian issues more than any other senator, with the arguable exceptions of constitutionalist Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, or on civil liberties, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
And it is libertarian principle—or more accurately, being effective in advancing liberty principles—that has always animated Paul.
When former President Barack Obama sought normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba in 2014, Paul broke with many in his party and supported the Democratic president. Why? Because diplomacy with America’s adversaries and peace through free trade are two primary libertarian tenets. Obama was doing something a libertarian president would have also done. Nor was this the only time Paul stood against many in his party during the Obama era on libertarian grounds.
Now that President Trump seeks to establish better relations with Russia, Paul defies the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment of both parties to support our Republican president. Why? For the same reason he supported Obama on Cuba—insisting on talking to our enemies has long been part of libertarian foreign policy thinking. Trump is doing something a libertarian president would have also done. Nor is this the only example of Paul supporting Trump for libertarian reasons—or opposing the president for the same principles (no other Republican senator votes against Trump more than Paul).
When Paul supported Obama on some issues, Republicans bashed him. Now that Paul supports Trump, both Republicans and Democrats bash the senator viciously (It’s amusing now to recall Paul calling his hawkish Republican critics diplomatic “isolationists” back when the senator supported Obama’s diplomacy efforts, just as he calls his bipartisan critics “isolationists” today for the exact same reason).
For Paul, his realist and non-interventionist principles remained the same in both scenarios—it’s all the partisan nonsense around him that’s forever changing, depending on who hates who in the White House.
It’s beyond silly.
Libertarians, too, have been known to put partisanship above trying to advance principle effectively. When Johnson criticized Paul in 2015 for being a Republican and not a member of the Libertarian Party, Paul took the high road, responding, “Libertarians shoot themselves in the foot if they want to nitpick and attack each other. I don’t have any attack for Gary Johnson…”
For Paul, again, none of this personal. It has never been about the GOP, or the Libertarian Party, or Obama or Trump or Johnson or himself. It’s always been about the principle at hand, no matter what party one belongs to or what figure libertarians might align with to advance those principles.
But this is ancient history now, or as Paul put it in his press release:
Should Gary Johnson win, it will be due in no small part to the early support of Rand Paul, whose endorsement would carry far less weight were he not a Republican.
Should the “Big L” Libertarian become New Mexico’s next U.S. senator, he will be able to make a real impact by joining forces with America’s most influential libertarian Republican.
