There’s another Aug. 2 deadline looming in Washington that also features a stand-off between a Tea Party favorite and the Obama administration. Senator Rand Paul, the freshman from Kentucky, has placed a hold on the otherwise broadly supported bipartisan bill that would allow FBI Director Robert Mueller to extend his 10-year stint by …
rand paul
In Victory Speech, Rand Paul Misquotes Thomas Jefferson
Maybe there is something in the tea–this habit that Tea Party candidates have, on election night, of misquoting the nation’s founding fathers. Just now, in a rousing victory speech, Kentucky’s newest senator, Rand Paul, announced, “Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘That government is best that governs least.’”
Except, no. He didn’t. Henry …
Rand Paul’s Medicare Shorthand
Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is in a spot of trouble over a comment he made about how to shore up Medicare. Speaking at a town hall in September 2009, Paul said “a $2,000 Medicare deductible would solve a huge amount of problems.” His Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, has seized on the statement, highlighting it …
What Would Don Draper Say?
Yesterday, I caught a new spot for Campbell’s soup that boasts of the company’s “farm-grown ingredients.” I did a double take. “Farm-grown ingredients”? As opposed to what? Test-tube carrots? Magically conjured potatoes? I imagined Peggy on Mad Man presenting the idea to Don Draper. The scene did not end well.
I mention this only as a …
Wave? Not yet in KY, CA & FL
Sure, all those pundits on cable and inside the Beltway may be predicting a wave year where Dems lose the House and maybe even the Senate. But the tsunami hasn’t yet been reflected in three new CNN/TIME/Opinion research polls of registered voters in Kentucky, California and Florida out today. In fact, most races were tied or just within …
Why Can’t Rachel Maddow And Rand Paul Get Along?
Last week, Rand Paul turned on Rachel Maddow. After Maddow invited him on her show, and painted his libertarian views as a proxy support for private sector segregation, Paul announced that he had been attacked by the “Looney Left.” So it goes. Politics ain’t T-ball. Yet we can all still hope that one day Maddow and Paul find a way to …
In Response To “Looney Left,” Rand Paul Says He Supports Civil Rights Act
On the Laura Ingram show Thursday, Rand Paul said that he would have supported the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and still supports it. Though he retains some concern over government dictating to business:
(via Taegan Goddard)
Rand Paul Shifts Gears
The electoral inadvisability of discussing his views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act have dawned on Rand Paul. He has abandoned his first instinct to defend himself on abstract, philosophical grounds and shifted to a more political tack.
“I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” he says in a statement, not …
Rand Paul’s Dilemma: Theory Vs. Practice
UPDATE: Thursday on the Laura Ingram show, Rand Paul responded to last night’s Rachel Maddow interview.
The libertarian approach, which heavily favors private rights over government rights, has always produced some interesting conversations. Most libertarians, for instance, don’t own a bong or watch extremely violent pornography, but …
The Wave Only Gets Bigger
From the top of my Time.com story about last night:
This is how it goes in 2010 at the ballot box: old orders are upended, political lions become roadkill, chosen successors get left behind and the outsider, riding a wave of discontent, becomes the new front-runner.
In quick succession Tuesday night, the jittery inhabitants of
…
Primary Season Heats Up
There are a lot of races this week — perhaps the busiest primary week since the 2008 season. Here’s a story from me about the five top Democratic primaries. Obviously, as I mention, there’s also the Rand Paul/Trey Grayson smackdown in Kentucky on the Republican side which it looks like Paul will likely win in a victory for the Tea …
Mitch Endorses
In an unusual move, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today endorsed his long time protege Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson for forced out, er, retiring Jim Bunning’s Senate seat.
With two weeks to go before the Bluegrass State’s first contested Senate GOP primary, Grayson is trailing insurgent Tea Party darling Rand …
The Rand Paul Phenomenon
Here’s a story from me out of Kentucky, where I went a few weeks ago to look at the GOP primary for Jim Bunning’s Senate seat. It’s hard to say who’s running a worse campaign, Rand Paul who has no message discipline and lacks charisma or Trey Grayson who doesn’t even post his events on his website (I’m still scratching my head …
