Via David Weigel, Rand's "spontaneous" surge of filibuster support (with pre-printed look-alike signs)
Bump has a detailed breakdown of why Rand's second "filibuster" flopped, which includes this gem:
Paul's 11-hour speech on Wednesday in objection to the Patriot Act didn't seem to have the same resonance. The first time around, Twitter (the company) trumpeted that more than a million tweets about the filibuster -- many tagged with the aspirational hashtag #standwithrand -- were sent that day. This time, data from the Twitter analytics tool Topsy suggests a much more humble response on the Internet's social comments system, perhaps as few as 100,000 tweets in total.-RW
Neither Rand, nor his brain trust seem to have ever studied political history, and have a political playbook that would embarrass a Pee Wee football coach.
ReplyDeleteAny libertarian politician has to stick to three things to keep the base behind him. He has to be credibly anti-empire, anti-police state, and anti-Fed. This is why we loved Ron, any shortcomings overlooked. Ron was root and branch against the regime. He meant what he said. Who can credibly say Rand is against any of these things? Rand called for sanctions on Iran and Russia. He walked back his anti-drone filibuster the next day on Fox News by telling the audience he is not opposed to drones being used on liquor store robbers. Finally, when was the last time you heard Rand even talk about the Fed let alone call to end it? I doubt he even takes the audit seriously anymore.
ReplyDeleteRon's immense base would crawl over broken glass to help him because Ron was the real McCoy. For Rand, Ron's base wouldn't left a finger to help him, beyond a small cadre of loyal but ignorant supporters. He's just a loser conservative republican, same as all the rest. He is the worst thing to happen to libertarian politics in the last 15 years as he sold our ideas down the river for a mess of pottage. Was it surprising to any wise libertarian the height to which he temporarily soared considering how badly he was throwing libertarian principle overboard to accommodate conservative public opinion? The regime wanted nothing more than to discredit the ideas Ron put forth. Ideas that were seeping into the public consciousness. Those ideas were the greatest threat they’d ever faced. What better way than to get the son to discredit the ideas as unrespectable and extreme. It is poetic justice to see Rand destroyed by the same media he sacrificed our ideas to to gain his popularity. Anyone with even a modicum of political savvy could have seen Rand's demise coming as he destroyed the very thing that created the Ron Paul movement, the ideas. Good riddance to the credibility of Rand and the hacks supporting him. May he not even get 1% of the GOP primary.
Rand Paul accepted his role as a real life "Judas" duck decoy so the neocons could decimate Ron Paul's flock from the Republican parties blinds. The only questions we are left to contemplate is what did they have on him, and how much was he paid to carry out such a nefarious scheme.
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