It really is about gaining power.
Politico reports:
Sen. Rand Paul is a near-certain presidential contender, but he stressed on Thursday that he won’t run a “quixotic” campaign.
Paul...outlined his thinking on a presidential bid during an appearance on conservative media personality Sean Hannity’s radio show.
He reiterated that a final decision will come in the spring. Paul is still weighing family considerations, he said, but in the coming months will also continue to test whether his message appears to be “resonating.”
“If it looks like we’re at 1 percent, not in the top tier, [that it would be a] quixotic sort of run. I’m not going to do it just for educational purposes,” he said, adding that he would “want to be in to win.”
This is so very different than his father's reason for running. SEE: How to Run for Office Like Ron Paul
-RW
"I’m not going to do it just for educational purposes,”
ReplyDeleteYes he is, he just doesn't realize it yet.
And the education he will get is that it never pays to sell out if you're playing for big stakes.
DeleteHe will not be running with his father's base of grassroots supporters. They have in large part abandoned him sans a small group of deluded and self-interested political types. That leaves a paid machine. I expect Koch money to fund him. With that money of course comes Koch ideas and the Koch agenda.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican nominee, Rand included, cannot win without Ron Paul's supporters. Ask John McCain and Mitt Romney. If they play nice, they may convince enough to hold their noses and vote for them, but it's just not their style to play nice.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican machine has such hatred and disdain for Ron Paul and his supporters that they lash out at them at every opportunity. In the 2012 campaign, they literally were telling RP's supporters to "F off, we don't need your support"...
Until about 2 weeks before the election when they started begging us to vote for Romney (Red State was a priceless example of this), but they still couldn't bring themselves not to be demeaning and insulting while begging by telling us how stupid we would be not to vote for Romney.
Mitt Romney lost Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida by fewer votes than Ron Paul got in the respective primaries in those states. To pull a notion from Gary North, we don't have enough support to get our candidate elected, but we CAN PUNISH when we so desire.
If Ron Paul's supporters do not vote for the Republican nominee, that nominee will lose, period. The Republicans are in a real bind because there is a growing part of the Republican base that is unwilling to vote for the lesser of two evils, and that is an explicit part of the Republican campaign strategy.
Rand is about to get an education, all right. Saying that he won't run to educate is a snipe at his father and his father's supporters. Insulting those whose support you need is just plain stupid, but then again, we are talking about the Stupid Party, as coined by the late great Samuel Francis...