Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
Kentucky senator and presumptive presidential candidate Rand Paul has entered the final stages of throat-clearing before becoming official presidential candidate Rand Paul. His big formal announcement is scheduled for Tuesday, but where his Republican competitor Ted Cruz sent out
his announcement-type tweet just hours before his big speech, Paul's tweet went out more than 24 hours ahead of time:
Can we just go ahead and say he's formally in, then? What with the website that has just a sign-up form, a donate button, and a Rand-fluffing video ending with a resounding chant of "President Paul"? All these layers of not-quite-officially-running are getting way too complex for me.
In any case, we can confidently say that the Republican presidential nomination fight now has, or is about to have, two official candidates. One of them is Ted Cruz. The other, with the slogan "Defeat the Washington machine and Unleash the American dream," is Rand Paul. So apparently the Washington machine does not include senators who wish to be president (and seriously, how many Washington staffers and consultants do you think were involved in coming up with that slogan and the accompanying video?), and the American dream includes founding your own medical board to certify you when you don't want to follow the rules of the actual medical board.