New York Magazine: Ron Paul Antics May Hurt Rand Paul

New York Magazine's Grace Wyler, in a drive by attack, suggests that Rand Paul needs to separate himself from both his father and Jack Hunter. She apparently has a big problem with Ron Paul wanting to promote liberty. Hunter is a goner but they really want Rand to stick a knife into his father.

Key snippets:

Apparently not content with a quiet retirement, former Texas congressman Ron Paul is expanding and diversifying his libertarian cottage industry with the launch of a new online television network, the Ron Paul Channel.

The subscription-only network, which is set to air sometime next month, is an entrepreneurial attempt by Paul to corner part of the growing — and increasingly lucrative — conspiracy-theory media market currently dominated by Glenn Beck and Alex Jones. Running under the tagline "Turn Off Your TV. Turn on the Truth," the channel promises to give viewers the news they would "never be shown" by the lame-stream media.[...]

The complication is that Paul’s son, Senator Rand Paul, is emerging as a serious candidate for the White House in 2016 and is making a concerted effort to distance himself from the fringe views and associations upon which his father built a career and a following. Ron Paul's refusal to retreat quietly to the farm — and his penchant for going off-script — escalates the already-present risk that his antics may begin to create real problems for Rand’s nascent campaign effort.
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So far, Rand Paul has mostly managed to avoid being tarred by any of the players in Ron Paul's burgeoning libertarian-industrial complex. In April, the younger Paul was conspicuously absent from the opening of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity[...]
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Last week's flare-up over reports that Rand Paul's Senate aide Jack Hunter, a.k.a. the Southern Avenger, used to traipse around South Carolina in a Stars and Bars luchador mask espousing neo-Confederate racism, proved again how easily stained the younger Paul is by the less-seemly elements of the far right. (Hunter, of course, was a self-inflicted wound.)

“Ron Paul was widely viewed by Republican voters as a kook, and voters are still recovering from that kook hangover,” said Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who worked as a senior adviser to John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “A lot of Rand Paul's energy will go toward distancing himself from that kook factor. Having someone who calls himself the Southern Avenger on your staff makes that more difficult.”
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Schmidt warns that should the younger Paul decide to run for president in 2016, his father's continued political involvement and postretirement ventures could get in the way of the campaign. “There is no scrutiny like the presidential campaign. Every day in the campaign that Ron Paul says something, the Rand Paul campaign is going to have to respond to that. And how well he does at answering those questions, and at distancing himself from his father, will determine how successful his campaign will be,” Schmidt said.

Rand Paul’s advisers — many of whom have put a lot of energy into separating father and son in the public mind — are sensitive to the idea that Ron Paul and his postretirement ventures could hurt his son's political prospects.
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 [...]with two years to go until the 2016 Iowa straw poll, Paul can ill afford to spend his time dodging associations with the right-wing fringe, a problem that could be compounded by an online television channel solely devoted to Ron Paul and his ideas.

“The things that make television work don't auger well for politics,” said Doug Wead, a veteran Paul aide who advised Ron Paul's last two presidential campaigns. “Television needs entertainment, drama, and controversy, and those are things that can sink a campaign.”

“In hours and hours of television, people are bound to say things that are, shall we say, ill advised,” Wead said. “There will be controversy. And that will probably have some effect on Rand.”