Rand Paul Peddles Himself as the Conservative for the Facebook Generation at Right-Wing Pow Wow

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/rand-paul-peddles-himself-conservative-facebook-generation-right-wing-pow-wow



Building on his media-star momentum coming out of last week's 13-hour drone-focused filibuster, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., delivered a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference that put on display the tensions currently plaguing the Republican Party, and made a play for the party's future base, which he called the Facebook generation.

Paul at times seemed to befuddle the older breed of social conservatives in the audience while simultaneously delighting a vocal crowd of young people who held aloft professionally printed placards provided by the Ron Paul youth group, Young Americans for Liberty, emblazoned with the slogan, "Stand With Rand" in black lettering against a red background, and decorated with a silhouetted drawing of their hero. (During Paul's filibuster, designed to delay the nomination vote for John Brennan, President Barack Obama's pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, his Twitter fans deployed the hashtag, #StandWithRand.)

Riding high on the buzz his "talking filibuster" created, Paul wasted no time reminding the crowd of his triumph. "They told me I had a measly 10 minutes," he said upon his arrival at the podium. "So, just in case, I brought 13 hours of material," he joked, holding up two fat loose-leaf binders. He went on to talk for nearly 20 minutes.

Confusion Among the Elders

When Paul dug into his views on civil liberties, he drew only polite applause from the grown-ups in the audience, while the kids clapped loudly. But when the talk turned to punishing Egypt for its citizens' burning of an American flag, or to Paul's proposed 17-percent across-the-board tax cut, or eliminating the Department of Education, or protecting the Second Amendment, the generations drew together with enthusiastic applause.

[graham4anything]

1. Rand Paul is the Sexy 2013 poster person for the John Birch Society

Rand Paul hates drones.
It takes far longer than just dropping the big one

Rand Paul, David Duke, Pat Buchanan, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott
Only thing different about Rand is he is younger, prettier, and has a team to give him
$400 John Edward style haircuts.

Very, very dangerous.
Jorg Haider is the prime example of packaging something for the modern age.
Thank God he didn't hurt anyone with his wreck-lessness after he stunningly won election in Austria in what was a charismatic, major upset.

Beware of Rand Paul. Sometimes a pretty book cover don't tell anywhere near the story of the book itself.

[rucky]

2. He can appeal to that younger generation

of partially grey-haired white conservative guys. Those whippersnappers!

[Thor_MN]

3. New and Improved!!1!!!

With 60% more insanity and optical brightners!!!!

[Javaman]

4. That's accurate. He's shallow and often talks about himself. nt