Rand Paul Could Kill the GOP

[babylonsister]

I felt it was my duty to post this, in response to this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025436103
The inevitable Hillary will lead to President Rand Paul.



http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/8/23/94657/5561

Rand Paul Could Kill the GOP

by BooMan
Sat Aug 23rd, 2014 at 09:46:57 AM EST


Sean McElwee does a nice job in Salon of explaining why a successful Rand Paul run for the Republican Party's presidential nomination would basically decimate the GOP's base of support. To sum up McElwee's argument, the tenets of libertarianism are not consistent with the values of Republican voters. Business elites want low taxes and lax regulation, but they also want corporate welfare, countercyclical spending, and a strong interventionist Federal Reserve. Foreign policy hawks want an interventionist foreign policy, large defense budgets, and support mass surveillance and brutality towards terrorism suspects. Social conservatives disagree with libertarians on almost every social issue, from drug and prison policy to gay marriage to immigration policy. The elderly do not support the libertarian goal of gutting Social Security. And then there are the nativists who primarily disagree with libertarians about immigration, but may also disagree with them on issues of crime and punishment.

Of course, Rand Paul has already begun to respond to these cross-currents in the Republican Party. He voted against immigration reform despite being for open borders. He's taken a more hawkish line of foreign policy. He is not going to run his father's pure libertarian campaign that, save on abortion, made no concessions to the above concerns. But Rand can't flip-flop-flip his way through these minefields indefinitely. He is going to have to take some definite positions and stick by them. And, most importantly, he is presumably running for president in order to attempt to implement his true vision, which he developed under his father's tutelage without any concern for what Republican primary voters would think about it. As he twists and contorts himself now in an effort to be a little of everything for everyone, he's just maneuvering.

If he were to win the nomination, many business elites would bolt the party, including those on Wall Street, in agribusiness, and the defense industry. Foreign interventionists would come back to the Democratic Party in a reverse flow of neo-conservatism. The party's advantage with the elderly would be greatly diminished. Social conservatives would be demoralized and would stay home.

To try to offset these losses, the party could make fresh appeals to young voters by going to the left of the Democratic Party on foreign policy, surveillance, the War on Drugs, and Prison Reform. But this would rip the GOP apart.

All of this may happen to the GOP anyway, whether or not Rand Paul actually wins the nomination. If he gets enough delegates, he could turn the Republican National Convention in Cleveland into an internecine civil war.

I don't think the two-party system is stable any more. The Dems don't appear to be on the verge of shedding any significant part of their coalition, but the GOP is going to have to pick a direction, and when they do, things are going to fly apart.

[FSogol]

1. K&R. Thanks for the post. n/t

[Faux pas]

2. Naw

he's a racist like his father. The goOp base will love him.

http://peoplesworld.org/ron-paul-s-neo-nazi-ties-romney-alliance-exposed/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/19/1256714/-Ron-Paul-More-Nazi-connections

http://www.care2.com/causes/anonymous-hacks-neo-nazis-finds-ron-paul.html

[newthinking]

3. We have been predicting the demise of the GOP for years

Indeed they have so many goofs, crazies, bad policies that the democrats should have buried them for good by now.

But unfortunately our own party is stuck in a Rut and keeps blowing the opportunity by leaning right, waffling, listing to corporate strategists, and leaving behind our strength (a strong liberal / populist platform that works).

[Thirties Child]

4. +100

[Gothmog]

5. Rand Paul will not be the GOP nominee

The GOP donor class hates Rsnd Paul. The OP is correct in that the nomination of Rand Paul would alienate the GOP donor class. I just do not believe that the GOP donor class will allow Rand Paul to be the nominee and historically this class controls the GOP nomination process

[Savannahmann]

6. The Republicans have already toned down their opposition to the ACA

They've gone from bomb everyone everywhere to opposing intervention in Syria with a few notable exceptions. Not the nuts, I'm talking the rank and file republicans. The ones that John Boehner had to try and coax into voting for a Immigration package before the recess.

The Rethugs read the polls too. They know that the economy is important to the voters, so they label all their opposition as opposing the "job killing" whatever. Job Killing Minimum Wage hike. Job Killing Obamacare. I've been expecting them to slip and announce they are opposing the Job Killing Daylight Savings time.

The small business owners who are Republicans will get behind Rand when he starts to win. The Corporations will jump on board in an effort to effect some influence on him.

So who will oppose him from the Right? The Religious Right? They sat out in large numbers over Romney's Mormon faith. I doubt they'll make that mistake again. They know they need a strong Republican Congress to moderate Rand's policies. But they won't vote for Hillary.

Liberals will vote for Hillary. But people who are disgusted with the nations wars and want a more non interventionist policy will be tempted to vote for Rand. That will become more of an issue if we start bombing ISIS more, and it looks like we probably will. Wall street bailouts? Rand has opposed them. That's the whole Occupy movement right there. Most of them will vote Democratic, but how many will cross over to support the first serious candidate who sounds like they do?

Marijuana. Everyone knows that the war on Drugs has been going on for generations, with no end in sight, and no victory really possible as long as people want the drugs and are willing to risk jail in buying them. So what are our choices? We could ramp up the drug war with the death penalty like the dealers don't risk death from rival gangs, and the cops every day. We could expand treatment options but those only work on people who want to get off the drugs, many don't. People are tired of all the searches of their cars, and the no knock warrants, and all that crap. So we'll lose a goodly portion of the anti drug war folks to Rand.

So far, he's lost the Corporate minions, and the Religious Right, and picked up some of the anti-war and anti war on drugs crowd.

Anti Police militarization? Unless President Obama takes action before the election, it will be an issue during the election. Hillary has been on the wrong side, and will either have to say she was wrong, and like her vote on the Iraq war, she could do that but then people can and will lose faith in her. Or she can insist that the police need the crap. Either way she loses some folks.

Now, here's the Privacy Minded. Hillary supports the NSA/FBI/CIA/GCHQ spying. Rand has opposed it. Most of the people think that the CIA/NSA and the rest have gone way too far.

So he's weak on the economy, but Hillary's plan is more of the same. He's weak on Civil Rights, but he's strong in a lot of other areas. Rand Paul can't be written off so easily. Especially when he goes and gets a warm reception at Berkeley discussing one of the hot topics I've mentioned, the NSA. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/us/politics/rand-paul-speaks-at-berkeley.html

The Rethugs want to win, just like we do. If Rand can give them a win, they'll fight to drag him to the right but they'll get behind him because they loath the idea of a Hillary win.

[librechik]

8. I can't trust the character of a man who would wear that curly thing on his head.

Does he really think anyone is fooled by that? Vanity and stupidity and deception all in the same package.

Also, I don't want another SS commander as president.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/head-stomp-victim-paul-supporters-planned-it/

what nice cronies for a selfish psychopath to surround himself with! Can't wait to see his cabinet.

[arcane1]

18. Rand Paul fans are deluded nitwits who think business interests are good for them

They are just helpful rubes for corporate power, insulting their own intelligence by calling their position "freedom".


If we lowered the voting age to 12 years old, Paul would win in a landslide.

[TBF]

20. ^ Good analysis here. nt

[TBF]

11. Fuck Ron Paul. nt

[aikoaiko]

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[rhett o rick]

9. I think the demise of the GOP is a terrible thing. We need two viable political parties.

As the GOP goes off the cliff, the conservatives are moving to the Democratic Party by the droves. Remember the only qualification needed to become a Democrat is that you call yourself a Democrat. Some here are happy that the GOP is dying. They don't recognize that those with conservative ideologies are not changing their ideologies only changing their party affiliation. The movement of conservatives into the Democratic Party is disenfranchising the left.

[Matrosov]

17. Conservative ideology is dying out

I agree that if the number of conservatives relative to progressives never changed, a one-party (Democratic) system could be problematic, because the conservatives would taint the DNC and start to pull the party to the right.

However, I do believe conservative ideology is surely dying out. We simply have to look at how much the country has changed over the last 50+ years. Some of reaction we're seeing against President Obama and what the right calls "cultural Marxism" are the death throes of conservatism.

Young people are more progressive than ever, and this country is going to look very different yet again in another 50 years.

[TlalocW]

10. That's a lot of assumptions to make

And it kind of runs head first into my own analysis of the prevailing attitude of republicans of whatever stripe (business elites, etc.) will be, "I just want a white guy as president again."

TlalocW

[ProdigalJunkMail]

12. if they survived Romney, McCain and Palin

they can survive anything... like cockroaches.

sP

[woo me with science]

13. That assumes that he's thoroughly a Libertarian. I don't think he is.

His politics have never been the same as his father's. He's a libertarian-leaning *Republican,* and he is perfectly capable of striking deals with the right wing and with corporatists.

In fact, the right-wing propaganda machine is already showing signs of lining up behind him:

Rush Limbaugh Stands With Rand Paul: 'The Neocons Are Paranoid'
The most popular conservative demagogue in America signals that hawkish foreign-policy dogma may be losing its hold on the GOP.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/rush-limbaugh-stands-with-rand-paul-the-neocons-are-paranoid/273938/

I suspect we'll get a campaign based on "libertarian" promises to rein in the wars and end the surveillance/police state. But the only libertarian positions we'll actually see in his governing will be what pleases the corporate One Percent: massive privatization, deregulation, and gutting of every social program in sight.


.

[mattclearing]

21. This would make sense if Rand Paul was actually a libertarian.

He's not. He's a Republican, and if he's at all successful in his bid for the White House, I'm sure his true believer supporters will be horrified at the speed with which he becomes a conventional Republican; an interventionist, drug-warrior, tough on crime, religious crusader.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

22. We should be so lucky.