Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has no one on pins and needles today after he
tweeted a pre-announcement of what will be his official announcement that he, too, thinks he can be president. He's making that official today from Kentucky at 12:00 ET, with the primary theme being "send me money" if that screenshot of his web site up above is any indication. He has already primed his supporters to
give en masse in a money bomb timed with his announcement.
Actually, his official theme is supposed to be "different." As in he's "a different kind of Republican," and of course also not his crazy father.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After watching his father try for the presidency and fail three separate times, Rand Paul is poised Tuesday to embark on his own White House bid, a campaign designed to tap into Ron Paul’s legacy without being suffocated by it.
The first-term Kentucky senator and ophthalmologist, elected in the conservative wave of 2010, will appear at the Galt House Hotel Tuesday where, advisers said, Rand Paul would present himself as a change agent who would reform the federal government.
The primary departure he seems to be making from his isolationist father is the biggest sop to the "establishment" he can make: more money for defense. He's even offered a budget amendment to boost defense spending $190 billion over the next two years. Which makes him maybe not such a different kind of Republican after all, except that he thinks pot should be legalized. So he's trying to create a base out of the hawks and the stoners.
Paul is promising Republicans they can win with him because he can get young people and minorities. That's coming from the guy who used to say that civil rights laws are unconstitutional and who didn't have a problem with people excluding others from their lunch counters because private property rights. The reimagined Paul says everybody should be able to vote, so that makes it all better and minorities are going to flock to him because he's "different." That's the message for the day. That and "send me money."