Love him or hate him, everyone knows that the Village narrative on Rand Paul (R-KY) is that he rose on the Tea Party tide, and ran to shake up the Old Boys' Club. Woohoo! That's never been done before!
So, how much juice does super-duper maverick Aquabuddha really have in D.C.?
None:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote Senate colleagues on Tuesday expressing opposition to reauthorizing the Patriot Act.
Paul, a freshman GOP senator with who's seen as a figurehead of the conservative Tea party movement, urged colleagues to give serious pause before voting to reauthorize the Patriot Act, the antiterrorism law first passed in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"I call upon each of my Senate colleagues to seriously consider whether the time has come to re-evaluate many—if not all—provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Our oath to uphold the Constitution demands it," Paul wrote in a "Dear Colleague" letter released Tuesday.
It was a good letter, actually. It even quoted Russ Feingold.
The only problem is that on Tuesday morning, Paul implored his colleagues to take their time and approach the serious issues presented by the USA PATRIOT Act more deliberately, and by Tuesday afternoon, there was a unanimous consent deal in place to grease the skids, a whopping 30 minutes of debate, and the bill passed over the "nay" votes of just 12 Senators.
How many of Paul's Tea Party Caucus freedom fighter colleagues joined him? One. Mike Lee (R-UT). Voting yea: the other 50% of the TP Caucus: Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Jerry Moran (R-KS).
What about other TP-associated Senators? Pat Toomey? Yea. Marco Rubio (R-FL)? Yea.
And since Paul brought up Feingold, what about this guy?
"I sprang from the tea party and have great respect for what it represents," said Sen. Ronald H. Johnson (R-Wis.), a polyester and plastics manufacturer who entered politics last year and defeated Sen. Russell Feingold, a Democrat who had held his seat for 18 years.
Johnson: yea.
That's what happens when you get to Washington, folks. Captain Libertarian managed to wrangle a whole 30 minutes of debate on the Patriot Act from the same Senate that's spent more than two weeks debating the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. Paul got himself 100 minutes of debate on his amendment to hold the FAA budget to fiscal year 2008 levels (which he lost when the amendment was tabled, 51-47). But just 30 minutes for the issue about which he wrote all of his colleagues insisting on more careful deliberation, and even closed his letter with the admonition, "Our oath to uphold the Constitution demands it."
That's D.C. for you. More specifically, that's the Senate.