Rand Paul is already running hard

By Richard K. Barry

Sen. Rand Paul is certainly running hard for the presidency, early as it is. He'll be in Iowa and New Hampshire in May, and in South Carolina in June. 

CNN reports that he is getting ready to endorse Mark Sanford in the special election in South Carolina:

Paul is organizing a series of public and private appearances across the first-in-the-South primary state in June, GOP sources with knowledge with the plans told CNN. The trip is "an effort to get to know Republicans across the state," as one person involved in the event-planning described it.

Paul makes no secret of his libertarian leanings, just like his father, but he is trying to cleave to the centre a bit more in order to have a credible run at the top job. The question may be whether he can appeal to moderates without completely alienating libertarian activists who make up so much of his enthusiastic base. 

The bigger problem is probably that he won't be able to shed enough libertarian orthodoxy to appeal to moderates. 

And if Rand Paul finds some way to get the GOP nomination, Hillary won't need to break a sweat. 

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

Droning on

By Mustang Bobby

I watched the Very Serious People on Morning Joe discuss the filibuster led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and of course everyone pulled out the YouTube clip of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and made the comparison. It works only if you cast Adam Sandler as Mr. Smith.

Anyway, the basis of Mr. Paul’s filibuster was that he couldn’t get a yes or no answer out of Attorney General Eric Holder and the White House as to whether or not they would rule out using a drone against an American citizen here on American soil. Seeing as how that is a hypothetical of the highest order, seeing as how this or any administration would probably not like to make a hard and fast statement on something like that — what about Pearl Harbor or September 11 — and seeing as how no matter what Mr. Holder or the president said they wouldn’t believe them in the first place, the exercise Mr. Paul went through was an entertaining footnote to a pointless discussion. It chewed up time on C-SPAN, it was a shiny object for the cable guys, and since nothing much else is going on in Washington — it’s snowing, I hear — and there aren’t any missing white women to hunt for, it was better than watching Bruce Boxleitner sell hair replacement kits on cable.

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