Should Rand Paul go big at Thursday night’s debate or go home? Some of his supporters, and fellow travelers who would like to be supporters, think so.
Dan McCarthy recently argued that the Kentucky senator and 2016 Republican presidential candidate was at risk of missing his Rudy Giuliani moment, a reference to a heated exchange between the former New York City mayor and Paul’s father in a 2007 Republican presidential debate that looked at the time like it would end Ron Paul’s campaign before it ever really began.
What happened instead was that Giuliani peaked on the stage in South Carolina that night and the Texas congressman attracted thousands of dedicated activists and ultimately more than a million, then more than 2 million, votes. I’ve written about the significance of that moment too.
I was nevertheless skeptical. For every Ron Paul there is a Jon Huntsman or Chuck Hagel whose rebukes of their party made them a pariah without obviously advancing their issues. More flies with honey than vinegar, etc.
Ron Paul was a candidate polling at 1 percent with nothing to lose. Rand Paul has a standing with the Republican base that his father never had and that’s an asset, not a liability. Yes, his presidential campaign is faltering. So is the campaign of every Republican candidate not named Donald Trump or, arguably, Jeb Bush. There are 16 to 17 major candidates and it’s early.
Regardless of what you think of the merits of the Iran deal, I certainly don’t believe Rand supporting it at a time when the president, seeking to rally wavering congressional Democrats, is accusing the “Republican caucus” of common cause with “death to America” shouting Iranian hardliners will have the same political impact as Ron being the only Republican on stage willing to speak out against a war most Americans had long ago turned against.
But a lot of present and would-be Randians are demoralized, most recently by the indictment of three Ron Paul associates, two of them currently running a pro-Rand Paul super PAC. One of them, Jesse Benton, also ran Rand Paul’s 2010 Senate campaign.
The three are accused of involvement in payment scheme to get an Iowa Republican state lawmaker to switch his endorsement from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul and then helping cover it up.
A statement from a Rand Paul campaign spokesman called the indictments “politically motivated” but also “from 2012 and have nothing to do with our campaign.” But some supporters quickly began complaining to the media, though never on the record, about Benton’s role in the super PAC.
During Ron Paul’s GOP presidential campaigns, Benton was always the lightning rod for libertarians when they sniffed something vaguely unprincipled. Like conservatives blamed Michael Deaver for never letting Reagan be Reagan, the implication was usually that Benton wasn’t letting Ron be Ron. Rand Paul has taken on much more of that libertarian criticism himself.
BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins tweeted that he was “actually taken aback by how rattled many in Rand world were by Benton’s indictment” after he reported a piece on the subject.
Some perspective is in order. Lindsey Graham supposedly decided to run for president in order to argue with Rand Paul about foreign policy in the debates. He won’t be on stage with him tonight because he isn’t polling well enough. In one recent survey, he attracted zero percent of the vote and trailed George Pataki. Two other similarly motivated hawks, John Bolton and Peter King, didn’t even bother to run. Chris Christie frequently attacks Paul. He also fairly consistently trails him.
But maybe Paul enters the Thursday debate more like his father than anyone thought, with little to lose. Is it time to take some risks on foreign policy? And say what you will about Trump, he is outspoken in his criticism of the Iraq war. It doesn’t seem to have hurt him with a vocal segment of conservatives.
Rand’s stand in Cleveland will be something to watch.
