While many of his Republican rivals are publicly calling for stronger military action against the Islamic State following last Friday’s terror attacks in Paris, GOP presidential hopeful Rand Paul has been distinctly careful to react.
The Kentucky senator was one of six GOP candidates to address voters in Orlando, Fla., Saturday at the 2015 Sunshine Summit, but the only White House hopeful to steer clear of addressing the tragedy in Paris at length.
Unlike Carly Fiorina, who took the stage hours after Paul and pledged to offer “support, weapons, material and intelligence sharing” to our allies fighting the Islamic State on the ground. Or Chris Christie, who told the crowd, “America needs to assert itself again on the world stage.” Paul instead shifted the conversation to the Syrian refugee crisis.
“One of the lessons we should learn from the tragedy in Paris is that we have to be very careful and extraordinarily cautious about who comes to visit, who emigrates here and who comes to study here,” he said, marking the only mention of Paris during more than 20 minutes of remarks.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575923
Later on, Paul was asked how he would handle the terrorist group in the wake of the Paris attacks. The notoriously dovish senator answered by jabbing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for blocking an amendment of his to the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration bill that would have implemented new screening requirements for U.S.-bound immigrants.
Paul also declined to specify what role he believes the U.S. military should have in preventing the Islamic terrorist group from further territorial expansion in the Middle East during an appearance Saturday on Fox News.
“I think we need to look at how ISIS came to be and how chaos and instability came to infect that region,” he said.
Some speculate that Paul has discreetly withdrawn from the renewed 2016 conversation on U.S. strategy against the Islamic State because the recent terror attacks against Russia, Lebanon and France have turned his foreign policy into an even greater liability.
“Paul may indeed be attempting to find a way to position himself to the right of Rubio on immigration, because his relative non-interventionism and skepticism of mass surveillance by the federal government has already limited his appeal among Republican voters,” Reason columnist Anthony Fisher wrote Monday.
Fisher noted that Paul’s reluctance to engage in a ground war against the Islamic State “may yet to prove to be a non-starter in a Republican field that will only grow more hawkish in the wake of Paris.”
When Paul did include himself in the conversation about foreign policy, he slammed Rubio for wanting to increase defense spending and opposed calls for boots on the ground in Iraq during the fourth GOP debate, he earned the praise of individuals who remain widely disliked in Republican circles.
“Good for Rand Paul, he sounded a little like his father [Ron Paul], and that’s what we loved about him at the beginning,” said Bill Maher, who’s endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and supported then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008.
“All these other Republicans talk about rebuilding the military. It’s already built. If we’re already 10 times where all the other countries combined are, why do we have to keep adding to it?” the progressive television host said Friday after airing a clip of Paul’s comments during the debate on his show.
Veteran campaign strategist Ford O’Connell says Paul is stuck “walking a tightrope because if he starts advocating a more muscular foreign policy, his libertarian supporters will abandon him.”
“He really cannot go out and say anything really unless the dust has settled,” O’Connell told the Washington Examiner.
“He’s going to try to stonewall for as long as possible,” the former McCain-Palin adviser said, adding that Paul is likely to “find himself left out of the conversation whether by choice or not.”
O’Connell continued, “This is literally just not his cycle. If there is another attack or the entire conversation shifts to foreign policy, he’s going to find himself in a lot of trouble.”
In an op-ed published Sunday evening, The Wall Street Journal suggested that even if Paul chooses to double down on what his rivals describe as an isolationist foreign policy, his chances of advancing in the GOP field are slim to none.
“Rand Paul’s already small chance at the nomination has now vanished,” the Journal wrote at the end of a lengthy condemnation of President Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State.
“Whatever [Paul’s] contributions on economics, his libertarian foreign-policy instincts are too similar to President Obama’s. GOP voters will increasingly look to sort the other candidates by their experience and judgement, not merely tough talk. The election should be a referendum on keeping America safe.”
Sticking to his immigration-centric response to the terrorist attacks in Paris, Paul reportedly told members of the press Monday he plans to introduce a bill that would halt America’s intake of refugees “from about 30 countries that have significant jihadist movements.”
Paul’s communication’s director, Sergio Gor, declined to speak to the senator’s sudden absence from the current conversation on foreign policy. Instead, Gor kept with the campaign’s attack strategy.
“Senator Paul proposed legislation in 2013 which was voted down by Marco Rubio and others,” Gor wrote in an email to the Examiner. “That legislation was a great idea in 2013, and it remains a great idea in 2015 especially with the ongoing fight against ISIS.”
“Extra screening and a moratorum just makes sense,” he added.
Paul is eighth in the Washington Examiner’s presidential power rankings and is tied with Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 3.7 percent support among Republican voters nationwide, according to RealClearPolitics polling data.
