The DNC has put out these instructive talking points:
To: Interested Parties:
FROM: Rob Flaherty, DNC Director of Digital Media
SUBJ: The Myth of the Rand Paul Youth Meme
Rand Paul, self-appointed Republican millennial whisperer, is at South by Southwest this weekend, in yet another attempt to make himself relevant to young people. But here’s the reality: it’s all smoke and mirrors. Among the greatest myths in politics right now is the notion that Rand Paul has any kind of special appeal to young people.
Let’s start with the polling.
Rand has never been really popular with young voters in any kind of quantifiable way. Harry Enten wrote about this trend in August of last year:
“The median of the eight surveys shows that among young voters, Paul trails by 17 percentage points more than he trails among all voters. That would represent a slight improvement over Romney, who lost young voters by nearly 20 points more than he did voters overall. Still, Paul’s and Romney’s relative performances with young voters are within the margin of error of each other.
In polling since, the trend has only continued. Last month, Fusion’s poll showed that he wasn’t even the most popular candidate among young Republicans, which was confirmed by Public Policy Polling. And the Washington Post’s most recent polling found that Rand would lose a hypothetical match up with a Democrat by nearly 30 points among 18-39 year olds.
Here's a theory:
ReplyDeleteHis choice of the nickname "Rand" for the name Randall was intended to make him appear to be libertarian. This may resonate with older people who fell for the Rand cult of celebrity, but young libertarians are mostly repelled by Ayn Rand's atrocious writing. Therefore, the young liberty devotees aren't blinded by any preconception fostered by the nickname and can easily see through little Randy's attempts at misdirection.
To me, he was obviously an empty suit from the first time I read about him. The nickname turned me off because, though I'm old enough to have been a Rand fan, I had long ago concluded that not only could she not write, her ideas weren't even her own.
Also, I had managed not to fall into the trap of worshiping his father because I had been around long enough to remember the way he had muscled the LP nomination, then dropped the party like a hot rock to scurry back into the GOP.