ALTOONA, IOWA – All the Republicans and their proxies are knocking the others – as porkers, individual mandators, illegal immigrant abettors, serial philanderers, and so on. The most interesting line of attack, however, might be Rand Paul’s dig at Rick Santorum as a war-monger.
While this could tap into a serious Republican aversion to our current hyper-interventionism, it also seems that foreign policy is a net loser for Paul. Maybe Santorum is too hawkish for most voters, but Ron Paul’s foreign policy might be too 1792-style for most voters, too.
Sen. Paul has been travelling the state this week with his father in what the Ron Paul campaign calls a “whistle-stop tour” (although they’re travelling by small plane). This morning, at a quick event in the downtown Marriott packed with reporters and Ron Paul die-hards, Rand was knocking Santorum for his bellicose foreign policy.
Reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro at the liberal TPM says the Pauls are actually trying to scare voters about a Santorum presidency, calling Rand a “walking Daisy ad,” referring to Lyndon Johnson’s notorious attack ad on Barry Goldwater.
Here’s the key Rand Paul quote:
And I have found many Iowa Republicans grown weary of endless war, especially, as my more hawkish colleague Phil Klein puts it, with 9/11 a decade in the rear-view mirror and:
After Santorum’s Pizza Ranch event here in Altoona tonight, I spoke to two undecided voters and one Santorum supporter who said they could back any GOP candidate except Paul. All three of them named foreign policy as the reason they couldn’t get behind Paul.
Sue Ann Lynes, whose husband Gregg was a Marine through the 1970s and 1980s, said Paul doesn’t support the troops. (Of course, Paul has raised the most money from military, and I think keeping us out of ill-advised wars supports the troops.)
Kathy Carly, in her 60s, was smoking in the cold out in back of the Pizza Ranch, and when I asked her an open question about her foreign policy views, she said “Foreign policy is a big issue when it comes to Ron Paul’s statements – as far as the isolationism.”
But when I pressed her for her own views, she opposed the Libya invasion, and said she had “mixed feelings” about Iraq. Carly, whose husband was career Army, said she didn’t want any more wars, either.
So you don’t have to be an uber-Hawk to reject Ron Paul’s foreign policy in Iowa. Even those more dovish than the Bush-era GOP side with Santorum over Paul – emphatically.
There’s a lot of room between “Bomb Iran” and calling the U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden “unnecessary.”
That suggests to me that beyond his loyal base, foreign policy is a net political loser for the Pauls within the GOP.
