Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Rand Paul Buzz Continues

At WaPo, Rachel Weiner evaluates a Rand Paul presidential run.

She comments at one point:
While he raised impressive amounts of online money for his Senate bid, Paul does not have Bachmann’s eyepopping fundraising prowess or large national network of supporters.
But she notes that his father, Ron Paul, raised over $50 million during the 2008 presidential run. I'm thinking a lot of that enthusiasm gets transferred over to Rand, if he runs instead of his father.

I think the transfer happens even if Rand is more mainstream. And, he does hold many mainstream views his father does not, that will shock hardcore libertarians According to Weiner, Rand:
 says Afghanistan troop levels are up to the president, not Congress. He’s not for drug legalization, although he opposes the war on drugs. He wants to keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay open.
The big question for Rand is, will he be able to hold on to the hardcore base of support his father has created? If he can, his more mainstream views will mean he will collect voters beyond that base. It means, hold your nose, he will be more "electable" than his father.

If Rand runs, instead of his father, he will still be the most free market, liberty oriented of the lot. He's much more solid than other candidates who are just dying to grab the libertarian torch from Ron Paul's hands, such as Herman Cain, Mitch Daniels and Gary Johnson.

4 comments:

  1. "He's much more solid than other candidates who are just dying to grab the libertarian torch from Ron Paul's hands, such as Herman Cain, Mitch Daniels and Gary Johnson."
    I disagree completely, I want Ron Paul to run, but if he does not, I would much rather have Gary Johnson run rather then Rand. Rand is what I call a "trickster libertarian". They'll get on the libertarian bandwagon to drum up support for themselves and then once they go mainstream they turn statist and support things, like in Rands case Guantanamo bay being open, an underground border fence, and a christian police state.

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  2. Supports jailing people for buying, posessing, selling or consuming a substance other people disapprove of? A woman has a right to privacy and can do with her body what she wants. But I have no right to ingest what I want when theere is no possibility of it harming any other person than myself. The prohibition corrupts police, DA's, entire legislatures. The powerful have access to scheduled drugs (President Kennedy, movie stars, Michel Jackson) while the hoi poli go to years of prison even if they have cancer and are in pain needing pain releaf from drugs.

    So that will get a few extra votes?

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  3. Rand really is too inconsistent for me to dedicate the kind of support to him that I do to his dad...

    Ron is a radical, Rand is more of a populist (although a hell of a lot better than most).

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  4. @ Everybody

    Do you really think Ron would throw his political support behind his son if his intentions were anything but libertarian? Has he suddenly lost the principle he's shown for three decades?

    In 1900, if the government tried imposing the tax structure and welfare state we deal with today, every politician would have been tarred and feathered. How then do we now have this monstrous state? Progessives have tactically seized on every opportunity to gain a little more power in government and a little less liberty for all. They haven't grabbed everything at once; only small pieces when and where they could.

    Now, libertarians have had cohesive moral and utilitarian logic to counter progressives since Rothbard; and since then we have STILL seen an ever expanding State. Maybe instead of abolishing everything at once, we need to take the tactical approach that progressives took- remove state power little by little, where and when we can.

    Ending the drug war will remove state power and make us more free, should we admonish him for taking the first steps that CAN be achieved and not going for what CAN NOT in this political climate? As Helio Beltrao points out here: http://mises.org/daily/5115/Austrolibertarianism-as-a-Starfish, the DREAM is a stateless society; the goals should be anything that puts us on a path to get there. If Rand removes state powers were he can, and prevents state powers from increasing in the remaining areas, that's a reduction of State Power, an Increase in Liberty, and Libertarians should view that as nothing other than a Win.

    -Mike

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