Saturday, May 17, 2014

NYT: Rand Paul is an Interesting Presidential Candidate

Who is running Rand Paul and why is he getting so much positive coverage from the establishment media?

The latest comes from NYT columnist Ross Douthat, who writes:
It is fair to say, I think, that Rand Paul is one of the most interestingmajor contenders for the Republican nomination in 2016, and by extension for the presidency. (That’s why everyone at this newspaper keeps writing about him!) It’s also fair to say that his path to both destinations would be unique, at least by the standards of modern G.O.P. presidential contenders: There are no obvious recent historical models for the kind of coalition Paul would need to put together to win either the nomination or the presidency, and there isn’t even a recent near-miss candidate (his father, for all his grassroots success, was just a “miss,” with nothing near about it) whose almost-success he could try to build upon.
Douthat goes on to point out that in order to advance his presidential support base,Rand will have to sell out on many postions  expand his reach à la Bill Clinton:
I enjoyed this Ben Domenech riff from a little over a month ago, which drew an analogy between Paul’s attempt to sell disparate groups on different features of his libertarianism and Bill Clinton’s past success in Democratic coalition management:... Come an actual campaign, there will be many...moments, when the strain of trying to put together an unprecedented sort of coalition will create tensions and contradictions that most politicians, however talented, would be unable to finesse.

I doubt Paul will be the exception. But again, it promises to be interesting to watch.

1 comment:

  1. When NYT has your photo with a halo behind it, you know you are one of the chosen ones.

    ReplyDelete