Posted on 11/10/2014 8:11:22 AM PST by Morgana
Senator Rand Paul is reportedly planning to launch his campaign for the Republican nomination for president next Spring. Paul is a pro-life senator from Kentucky who maintains a 100% pro-life voting record but has made some comments in the last 12-18 months that have raised some eyebrows.
randpaul5According to a Politico report, Paul would open up a presidential campaign headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky and would run simultaneous campaigns for president and for re-election to his Senate seat in case he fails to clinch the GOP nomination in early 2016.
The report also indicates Paul will rely heavily on advisers to his father, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination.
From the report:
In a POLITICO interview, the 51-year-old senator talked unblinkingly about the possibility of a run, and sought to draw a sharp contrast between himself and Hillary Clinton — none too subtly raising the issue of her age. At 67, she is 16 years older than he is.
“I think all the polls show if she does run, she’ll win the Democrat nomination,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s for certain. It’s a very taxing undertaking to go through. It’s a rigorous physical ordeal, I think, to be able to campaign for the presidency.”
Paul, who will face a much more crowded field on the Republican side but starts out as a slight front-runner in public polls, has begun an aggressive early campaign against Clinton.
Paul reiterated his long-standing assertion that he won’t officially decide about a presidential run until the spring, but his advisers have already laid out a timetable: They expect the campaign will be a “go” by mid-April, with an announcement as quickly after that as his staff can put together a fly-around to the early states.
Within the next few weeks, Paul is set to announce that he’ll run for reelection to the Senate in 2016 – a race that he is likely to run simultaneously with a presidential campaign. Kentucky has a law preventing a candidate from running for more than one office at a time, but Paul advisers believe they have found multiple ways around the restriction without changing the law or challenging it in court, including exploring changing the state’s GOP primary to a caucus. If Paul won the presidential nomination, he might focus on that race and drop the Senate campaign.
That decision is not without political risk: Previous presidential candidates, including Vice President Joe Biden, have often faced criticism for running concurrent national and local campaigns. Any perception that Paul is hedging his bets could also undermine his effort to be taken seriously as a mainstream front-runner.
But there’s little doubt at this point that Paul will start the presidential race as a serious Republican candidate. He is slightly ahead of former Florida governor Jeb Bush for the lead among potential GOP presidential aspirants in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls. But he has a libertarian philosophy and wariness of international activism that are at odds with the views of many in the party’s establishment.
When it comes to pro-life issues, there is little doubt Paul is pro-life and, on 10 votes on pro-life issues cast int he Senate during his tenure, Paul has a 100% pro-life voting record. Paul has said “personal religious belief” is that life begins at conception. But Paul made pro-life activists curious when he said, earlier this year, that Republicans should agree to disagree on social issues.Then, in an April interview, Paul says he doesn’t anticipate changing the laws on abortion and added that his belief that life begins at conception is a personal and religious one, not a scientific viewpoint.
“The country is in the middle (and) we’re not changing any of the laws until the country is persuaded otherwise,” he says.
Paul is clearly pro-life, but pro-life voters expect a Republican nominee in 2016 who will lead on the pro-life issue towards approving Supreme Court judges who will overturn Roe and pave the way for banning abortions state by state or nationally.
He seems to think America is not pro-life enough to ban abortions, never mind that a majority of Americans have been consistently pro-life in polls for decades — so much so that Gallup recently called the pro-life majority on abortion the “new normal.”
The pro-life movement today is looking for red meat. After two presidential campaigns with weak pro-life nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney, who did not inspire some pro-life Americans to campaign heavily on their behalf, pro-life voters want candidates who will eviscerate abortion rhetorically on the campaign trail. Comments like the ones Rand Paul has made will not serve him well if he wants to expand beyond his father’s libertarian base to become a serious 2016 presidential contender.
If Paul doesn’t offer the kind of red meat pro-life voters are demanding, they’ll quickly flock to someone like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, who have carefully built bridges with the pro-life movement by speaking in plain anti-abortion language pro-life voters understand and appreciate.
Only Governors have a shot at winning.
Good. Flame out early.
If Rand does well he may make a good ‘unity’ VP pick.
It is revealing that the Romneylke Rand Paul, obviously entered his Senate race just to be president, and yet no one even knows for sure what his most basic politics are, for instance on abortion and gay marriage, immigration, and foreign policy.
Already his taking different positions in front of different audiences and taking both sides of issues from moment to moment, reveals that he will say and do anything in pursuit of fulfilling his dad’s dream, just like Mitt Romney, and just like Romney, we have no idea why he wants to be president.
The suspense is killing me.
Libertarians and conservatives must unite to defeat the real enemy: The Democrats.
The two biggest drags on his campaign will be his goofy ideas, and his father’s crazy ideas. I am sure the Paulistinians will show up and all the state caucuses for their normal shenanigans.
“shenanigans”
That’s the ticket, shenanigans
Don’t like him. Won’t vote for him. Period!
Who didn’t see this coming?
And Rand Paul ain't that.
Libertarians unite?? Are you kidding???
Only thing a Rand Paul candidacy will become is Ron Paul/Gary Johnson 2.0.
The Paulbots will be on fire and will not accept anyone else, thus throwing the election (again) to the Democratic candidate.
Oh goody.
An announcement that he’s going to announce.
NEXT!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Ron Paul for President! !!
Yawn...
yep, Paul will say the Republican brand is damaged, and the MSM will run with that.
When Rand loses the nomination, the remaining candidates will be having to dig out from under Paul`s/MSM branding of the party as out of touch and hateful whatever.
Seems as if he is all about Rand
The problem as I see it with the Republicans is that they manage to let so many idiots siphon off so much money and votes from the few that might actually have a shot and then they let the liberals run the debates making them look like clowns in a circus.
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