Andrew Wolfson has an article at the Louisville Courier Journal where he does yeoman's work in digging deep into the past political comments and appearances to try and paint a picture of Paul's politics.
It's chock full of quotes and snippets that folks here will actually wholeheartedly agree with and vehemently disagree with. It's ten pages long on the internet but it's is a definite must read - http://www.courier-journal.com/...
Paul also told the protesters that "the other thing just infuriates me is that they blame greed. Not that greed is a good thing to have. ... But it is an indirect way of blaming capitalism. What is greed? Greed is an excess of self-interest, but what drives capitalism? Self-interest and profit. They are good things."
Now where have I heard that above argument before???
What are some areas where he might find some agreement here?
Paul on the MIC/Defense spending:
Appearing at a kickoff rally for his father's presidential campaign in Montana on Jan. 31, 2008, he said that national defense is the primary function of the federal government but added, "Does that mean you have a blank check for the military-industrial complex?"
"As conservatives," he said, "we say that throwing more money at a problem doesn't always fix it. But then all the sudden, we lose our brains and say, a billion dollars here, a trillion dollars there to Halliburton. We keep spending with no restraint. ... We need to recognize as Republicans that we can't give a blank check to the military."
Would Paul be the best chance to finally bring Defense spending and the MIC to the political forefront? Dems are unwilling because they're worried about being painted weak on defense. Paul would make this charge from the Republican side of the aisle.
In an interview on May 15, 2009, Paul told the host of Antiwar Radio that he would have voted against going to war in Iraq and that he opposes a long-term occupation of Iraq or Iran.
In the same interview, he said, "I think torture is always wrong" and that "our country should have a higher ideal than that."
He also said at the Montana rally that Americans "need to figure out what is going on with terrorism and why they attack us."
Looking at reason why they attack us? That is seemingly a no-go territory for both parties. Paul goes on to say that if the Chinese invaded American that Americans - both Republicans and Democrats - would be behaving much like Afghanis and Iraqis are who plant IED's and attack American troops.
Paul also speaks out against Government funding of faith based programs -
Addressing President Bush's program of funneling government money through religious-based charities, Paul said on KET's Kentucky Tonight on June 30, 2008, that "churches do charity work, and that is wonderful, but they shouldn't be corrupted with government money."
He also said the initiatives "obscure the church-state separation that there really ought to be.
Of course many of his more famous quotes many here absolutely disagree with have already been made public, where he went on Maddow with the right for private businesses to discriminate, saying that folks with disabilities should essentialy look for jobs with first floor offices.
In talking about health care, he says that if health care is a right, then essentially he is a slave because he would be forced to provide his service.
This one was a real doozy -
Asked whether he supported a bill to expand health insurance to cover 50,000 children in Kentucky who didn't have it, Paul said on KET in 1998 that it eventually would lead to universal coverage, which he said he opposed because it would drive up costs.
"Demand is infinite for something that is free," he said. "It sounds mean-spirited to say something has to cost something so somebody won't go to the doctor, but you have to have it cost something."
He seemed to venture into Sue Lowden territory as well in the past-
"If you go to the doctor, you don't pay directly for your doctor's services, your insurance company pays for it. ... So the price goes up indiscriminately because nobody is there to barter down the price. What we need is higher-deductible plans, people paying more cash as they go into the doctor, and then what we'll have is the prices will level off."
A case is then made against Rand Paul's electability, saying his long paper trail makes him more like a Supreme Court Justice nominee than first time political candidate as he will have to defend every remark he ever made. Another says that Paul will run into trouble when voters come to know his record in more detail, and how will farmers in rural Kentucky feel about Paul wanting to wipe out agri subsidies, or Kentycky businessmen who like the idea of federal help and pork knowing Paul will likely not imbibe in this area for his constituents.
Still, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, independent-minded voters may be attracted to the fact that Paul is a "square peg that refused to fit into a round hole."
"Many of his past positions, on both right and left, would have been enough to defeat a candidate for high office in the past," Sabato said. "If you go issue by issue, and focus just on which people will disagree, you can add up the opponents into a very large majority of the population."
But Sabato said the key to Paul's success so far is that he isn't being judged according to the usual rules.
"Voters seem to be giving him a pass," Sabato said, "almost saying, 'Well, that's just Rand; he's not a politician.'"
GOP find themselves in quite the pickle here, because I think Sabato is right, but the GOP doesn't want to be defending Rand nationally so they're trying to mold him into a regular pol. Jack Conway has picked up on this, very astutely I believe and ahead of the curve, as his initial attacks on Paul are trying to paint him as a Politican as usual, quickly accepting the RNC's help and guidance - backing away from pledges he took as a primary candidate where he now admits he only took them to separate himself from Grayson.
Once again, this is all Andrew Wolfson's work and should be read in full here- http://www.courier-journal.com/...