As the Republican war over war escalates, more polling has come out showing that Rand Paul is up against more than the other GOP presidential candidates
Quinnipiac concludes that while 59 percent of Americans believe going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do, Republicans still support the decision by 62 percent to 28 percent. This is on top of a Vox Populi/Daily Caller poll showing that 59 percent of early state Republicans continued to back the 2003 invasion.
The fact that the country as a whole opposes the war by nearly the same margin as Republicans still support it explains why Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have struggled to answer questions about whether they would have made the same decisions George W. Bush did. But where does this leave Paul, who like his father is picking a fight with hawks who outnumber him?
It could leave him exactly where it left his father. But that’s not the only possibility. First, the minority percentage of Republicans who told Quinnipiac they think the Iraq war was a mistake is nearly three times as large as the share of the vote going to each of the five GOP front-runners in the poll. Paul is the only member of this huge field courting that vote.
Second, Paul’s underlying numbers with the Republican primary electorate are better than his father’s. Only 8 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners tell Quinnipiac they would definitely not vote for him — higher than some, but much lower than top-tier candidates like Bush.
Factor in second choices and Paul is closer to the top of the field than the bottom. If — and this is admittedly a big if — Paul can continue to press his case on foreign policy without losing his credibility with the base, he can contribute to making the Iraq war less of a partisan issue. At least some of the rank-and-file Republican reluctance to label the Iraq war a mistake is just a preference for siding with Bush over President Obama.
Maybe Paul’s rivals can score the knockout blow against the Kentucky senator by putting him on Obama’s side rather than Bush’s. Paul is going to have try to establish that Iraq war buyer’s remorse is a legitimate conservative Republican position.
