Just Say No to Rand Paul
It would be a disaster for Republicans to nominate the Kentucky senator for president in 2016.
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| Not so fast, GOP |
With the dramatic 2014 midterm election sweep under their belts, Republicans are already talking about 2016, debating who their strongest candidates might be and what issues they should focus on.
Here's a very important one: The U.S. has essentially been at war since we were attacked on 9/11, and – just like the Vietnam conflict that went on for more than a decade – we have all grown weary of the seemingly endless struggle against radical Islamic factions all around the world. This, as yet another even more dangerous faction – the Islamic State group – becomes more menacing by the day. The reality is, and most of us know (rather, we know it but don’t like it) that we must eventually, whether in a coalition or by ourselves, destroy this threat and that we’ll never be safe again until we do it. And that it may take another decade – or two or three!
The acknowledgement of this unpleasant reality should be a central focus of the selection of candidates by both political parties for the 2016 elections.
In that context, perhaps the very last thing conservatives or Republicans should be thinking about is the idea of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul as the GOP nominee. Even worse is the notion of Paul as a possible third party nominee, ala Ross Perot’s run in 1992. Why? Recall that Perot was the primary reason President Bill Clinton was elected: By taking 20 million – presumably conservative Republican – votes away from the then incumbent, President George H.W. Bush.
Here are a few more reasons why running Rand Paul in 2016 would be a very bad idea for the Republican Party and conservatives.
First, the Democrats would, of course, love it: With Paul running, they would succeed again in splitting the Republican Party. To accomplish this, they would donate very big money to various supporting and sympathetic libertarian causes to ensure that it happened. In this same context, Paul has just scored his third cover with liberal Time Magazine. They clearly want him to run, just not to win!
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On the merits, Paul would be a poor candidate for national office, primarily because he represents a return to the 19th century as far as his geopolitical view of the world is concerned. He sees intervention in most all conflicts as not in the interests of the United States. This when, just for example, the Islamic State group has been – thanks to President Barack Obama – allowed to grow into a clear and present danger to us all, and will most certainly attack us at home and abroad whenever it feels capable of it. And it is unlikely that the Islamic State group can ever be neutralized without direct U.S. military involvement, i.e., “boots on the ground”.
While he’s no doubt a very bright and highly educated man, Paul will likely be unprepared when it comes to the leadership and management skills necessary to run a very large and dynamic organization and deal with foreign leaders. Why? He is like most doctors (and lawyers too) who are trained to work in a largely one on one professional service environment; they are often overwhelmed by large and complex organizations. Obama clearly suffers from this same disability. In fact, neither Obama nor Paul has ever had a “real job” – or been responsible for running a large, human and resource centric organization. And politically, when compared to being president, running a Senate office is more akin to a family-run corner store in a very small town. In short, Paul will likely have a painfully long learning curve, just like Obama's, which is going on six years and counting.
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Paul is a very smart guy with a number of good ideas. Accordingly, he should be encouraged to aggressively support – but he certainly should not be – the Republican nominee for president for 2016. Nor should he be otherwise enabled to bleed votes away from, and thereby help defeat, the Republican nominee with a collateral or third party run, like Perot did in 1992.
In order to win the presidential election in 2016, Republicans must find, nominate and field a popular and articulate Ronald Reagan-style candidate with broad and diverse appeal and wide political recognition. However, even more important, in order to be an effective president, the Republican candidate must first be elected – and to be elected, he or she must be pragmatic, as was Reagan. This is – quite simply – not a job for a Rand Paul-type candidate: One who seems to serve only to divide and fragment the Republican Party.
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