Tuesday, July 14, 2015

A One Way Ticket to Palookaville



Rand Paul opposes the deal with Iran.  I won’t explode his publicly offered reasons (Justin Raimondo does an admirable job of this).  I will speculate about his private ones: he thinks that by holding to mainstream positions he will out mainstream the mainstream candidates.  I can’t say if he believes these positions or not; I comment only on what is observable.

I will touch on three aspects of this event.  First, from a list of five political consequences regarding the Iran deal, David Frum  (and you know he hates the deal, just because it is a deal with Iran) lists the consequences to Rand:

Paul will either find himself isolated with the old Ron Paul constituency—or he’ll have to find some nimble way to jump to the “anti” side of the Iran deal. (Perhaps he will emphasize the slight to Congress it represents?) If he opts for the latter approach, however, he becomes just another Republican voice among many competing to voice their opposition, and one less powerful and credible than, for example, Ted Cruz will be.

There are now 15 (I believe) individuals running for the Republican nomination.  Wouldn’t it make sense to be “isolated”?  After all, Rand can’t out-neocon fourteen other neocons and he will never be believed by the neocons anyway. 


“I think it’s doubtful that we get a lot of current Republican elected officials supporting this deal,” Mr. Obama said. “I think there’s a certain party line that has to be toed, within their primaries and among many sitting members of Congress. But that’s not across the board. It’ll be interesting to see what somebody like a Rand Paul has to say about this.”

Frum lists Rand first; Obama puts the spotlight on Rand.  Think about this – no matter all of the self-destructive behavior Rand has exhibited, beginning with his endorsement of Romney, Rand is still the one candidate the neocons fear; not because of Rand’s positions, but because of what he represents…his father.  Imagine if he stuck to principle!

Third, from the aforementioned Raimondo piece:

While Frum is wrong that supporting the deal would’ve confined Paul to his father’s constituency – polls show 65 percent of Republicans supported the negotiations, and a third support a deal – he is dead right about the consequences of Paul opposing the deal. The “libertarian-ish” Senator from Kentucky is just another Ted Cruz, albeit less loud (and with less book sales) than the Canadian performance artist-cum-politician.

Yeah, he could’ve been a contender….

Look, right at the bottom of this blog, I write: “Permission to copy fully granted as long as a link is provided back to this site.”

Raimondo offers a link, as follows, but it isn’t to this blog:


It is the clip from “On the Waterfront.”

Why would I point this out?  Three years ago at the time when Rand endorsed Romney while his father was still running, I published a post entitled: “Rand Paul: On the Waterfront.”

You don't understand, I could have had class!
I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody.
Instead of a bum...
...which is what I am. Let's face it.

Raimondo should have linked back to my blog!

I only want to make two points about this: first, to Raimondo, I want to gloat!  Second, if it isn’t clear to every single Rand Paul supporter who hung on despite all of the obvious clues – hoping against hope that he would continue in his father’s footsteps, I offer the following which represents what will be the outcome of Rand’s candidacy, also from Marlon Brando:

A one way ticket to Palookaville.

7 comments:

  1. The problem is that Rand spends too much time in Washington. Washington corrupts that which resides there. That is the reason why the Mises institute is in Alabama.

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  2. "It’ll be interesting to see what somebody like a Rand Paul has to say about this.”

    First, we have to figure out what Rand Paul is like. A windsock comes to mind.

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  3. "It’ll be interesting to see what somebody like a Rand Paul has to say about this.”

    When I first read Obama's comment the other day, the first thing coming to my mind was:

    "Obama just sunk a knife deep, deep into Rand's chest."

    The reason for my thinking on this is because I have this suspicion that Obama knew Rand was going to fall into the Neocon line....

    I could be wrong, but that was my first gut reaction to reading the Big O's statement.

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  4. It's my understanding that Ron Paul actually started out as a conservative, and gravitated toward libertarianism as he got older. Rand might be going though the same experience, but it sure is a shame if that's the case. It would have been much better for him to pick up where Ron left off. Maybe in 30 years Rand will finally get to where the rest of us already are.

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    1. At least in public life, Ron was always quite libertarian. When he ran in for president 1988 on the Libertarian Party ticket, he was far more "radical" than he has been in the last ten years.

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  5. The only thing more disappointing than Rand himself is the fact that so many (quasi) libertarians still hold him out as a comparable figure to his father...

    "He has all the same grounded principles, he's just willing to play the game!" Ironically, his political "pragmatism" has made him unelectable. Now he's just a better Ted Cruz or Gary Johnson. But that he can properly grouped with that crowd, while his campaign handlers apparently calculated it to be a strength, is the fatal flaw of his political aspirations.

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  6. The Tom Woods Show interview of Scott Horton on this topic was excellent.

    Rand keeps spamming me for money (I gave a fair amount to his father in 2008 and 2012) and I keep deleting the e-mails.

    I intended 2012 to be my last foray into politics, done only out of respect and thanks for Ron. Rand has done everything possible NOT to tempt me back into that swamp, so I guess I can thank him.

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