The Refugees Unleashed

by **gwen** » Thu May 20, 2010 9:29 am

Topic:
Rand Paul
Thursday, May 20, 2010 08:21 ET
War Room How Rand Paul can win in Kentucky, and still doom the GOP
By Gabriel Winant
APIt's been noted, here and elsewhere, that the Republican establishment is not thrilled with the triumph of Rand Paul in the Kentucky Senate primary. The reason usually offered is that Paul will be the first major voice in the party to dissent from the dominant neoconserative line on national security issues. This certainly seems true, but there's a simpler reason why Paul should make Republicans nervous: he might be able to win in Kentucky, but he's going to spell trouble for the GOP nationwide, and maybe for longer than just this year.

To start off, there's Paul's opposition to the Civil Rights and Americans with Disabilities Acts. As our editor Joan Walsh noted last night, he's revealed himself as a true turn-back-the-clock reactionary (as well as surprisingly weaselly). Not that it's shocking, but at one point in his explanation of opposition to the Civil Rights Act, Paul tries to bring up the "commerce clause" of the Constitution.

The commerce clause is what allows the federal government to do much of its policymaking, because it authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce. It's the constitutional bedrock of the New Deal state. And there's a movement on the right -- with which Paul seems to reveal himself as a sympathizer -- that holds that this interpretation of the Constitution is incorrect. Tea Party media favorite Andrew Napolitano uses the favored phrase for the title of his book: "The Constitution in Exile." These are the guys who wouldn’t go crying "activist judges" if the Supreme Court struck down, say, Medicare. They'd say that democracy had finally been restored.

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None of this is to say that Paul can't win Kentucky. To be sure, like every state, Kentucky has benefited immensely from New Deal and Great Society-era liberal lawmaking. (Did you know that the Tennessee Valley, which spills into western Kentucky, was a malarial zone until the 1930s? A malarial zone. Or how about the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act -- the only significant check on coal companies seeking to strip mine eastern Kentucky into a wasteland?)

But 2010 is going to be the best Republican election year since 1994, and at the moment, Kentucky is one of the most reliably conservative states. It's in the heart of the regional belt that President Obama had the hardest time convincing in the 2008 election. The key political characteristic here is a white population with, well, the politics of southern white folks, and -- unlike in, say, Georgia or South Carolina -- a black population too small to have a chance at making up for it. Frankly, it's entirely possible that Paul will benefit from his discomfort with civil rights law. Once a real, seemingly legitimate candidate comes out and says it, voters who are aware that they’re supposed to know better may feel comfortable giving voice -- and votes -- to their own quieted-down racism as well.

Even if Paul wins in Kentucky, though, he's bad news for his party in general. In fact, he's bad news especially if he wins. The Tea Party is going to be emboldened by a Senator Paul, and misinterpret his success in a conservative state as evidence that Tea Party conservatism is the road back to power for the GOP in general. When mainstream conservatives cite electability in primaries against Tea Party candidates, they'll have Paul thrown in their faces. But that won't make them any less right.

If Tea Party activists succeed in turning the Republicans into the advocates of repealing significant portions of the modern liberal bureaucracy, they're going to kill the GOP for a generation. This is what Newt Gingrich found out when he became House speaker -- the public had no appetite for an attack on Medicare or the dismantling of the Department of Education. In fact, this is a moment to which we can trace back the Tea Party: It was Gingrich's overreach that inspired the big-government, welfare-warfare conservatism of George W. Bush, to which the Tea Party itself is a response.

In other words, what we're seeing here is a back-and-forth between the purist right wing and the conservatives who understand the compromises involved in winning. Bush borrowed a bunch of money and doled it out happily. In so doing, he made his party palatable to a bare majority. Because the Republican establishment has wrested internal party power from the unelectable goons who make up its base, the Tea Party folks love to represent themselves as some kind of new, third force in American politics. They seem to imagine themselves standing outside the right-left continuum, with ties to the GOP that are just an incidental matter of convenience. But it's clear that they're little more than the inevitable revival of the right wing of the right wing. That can obviously sell in Republican primaries, and even certain general elections when the stars align.

But the national electorate is getting less white every year. Moreover, we're going to exit this recession with some weak, but significant, renewal of the tradition of government involvement in the economy. With the employment growing again, the economy recovering, and healthcare reform taking effect, the ground is disintegrating under the feet of the Tea Party, even as its members think their moment of triumph is at hand. That's the exact recipe for an unpopular minority movement to convince itself that it represents a broad majority, take over its party, and lead it to disaster.

http://www.salon.com/news/rand_paul_ken ... _electable

by **gwen** » Thu May 20, 2010 9:31 am

Maddow: Do you think that a private business has a right to say that 'We don't serve black people?'

Paul: I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race. Butdo discriminate.

But I think what's important in this debate is not getting into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question 'What about freedom of speech?' Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking. I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things that freedom requires is that
we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it...

Paul argued that Maddow's questions weren't practical, but were instead abstract. She asked Paul to tell that to protesters who were beaten in their struggle for equal rights:

Maddow:... Howabout desegregating lunch counters?
Paul: Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other.' Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion...

Maddow: Well, it was pretty practical to the people who had the life nearly beaten out of them trying to desegregate Walgreen's lunch counters despite these esoteric debates about what it means about ownership. This is not a hypothetical Dr. Paul.

Paul will face Democratic Senate candidate and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway in the general election to replace Republican Sen. Jim Bunning on November 2, 2010.

by **pax** » Thu May 20, 2010 1:06 pm

I'm interested in this Senate race. Looking forward to watching debates. The citizens of Kentucky will decide and I'm fine with that. I watched Paul's interview with Maddow. She spent the whole time trying to 'win' a constitutional argument instead of letting him explain what he intends to accomplish if he's elected. I want to hear more of how - on practical matters - both Paul and Conway envision operating in the Senate.

by **gwen** » Thu May 20, 2010 3:06 pm

pax wrote:I'm interested in this Senate race. Looking forward to watching debates. The citizens of Kentucky will decide and I'm fine with that. I watched Paul's interview with Maddow. She spent the whole time trying to 'win' a constitutional argument instead of letting him explain what he intends to accomplish if he's elected. I want to hear more of how - on practical matters - both Paul and Conway envision operating in the Senate.

Surely you realize Rand has much more impact than just to the citizens of Kentucky. I watched Maddow also and if he would have answered her question instead of trying to tap dance around, she would have moved on. His point came across loud and clear and certainly did not reflect well on him.

by **pax** » Thu May 20, 2010 7:47 pm

Yes, I realize that gwen. I wouldn't vote for Paul if I lived there. I'm interested in where he stands on specific issues because I feel the more people find out, the less popular his candidacy will be. For example, I suspect he'd advocate repealing health care reform, opposing Wall Street reform, repealing the Disabilities Act and lowering taxes even further on the top five percent and big corporations. I don't know for certain how that will play in Kentucky. It's not popular with me.

by **yankee-in-france** » Fri May 21, 2010 3:38 am

I think that a candidate who believes that discrimination is acceptable in 21st century society will not serve the people of his state or of his country well. He may be right in his fiscal plans for the country but when weighed with his beliefs doesn't make him look so hot.

by **pax** » Fri May 21, 2010 1:56 pm

Hey gwen, I thought about what you said yesterday. Now I agree with you. At first I thought they were discussing esoteric theory. Now I understand they're talking about whether the public accommodations act of civil rights law should be overturned. Paul raised the issue. That's why Maddow asks. I respect Maddow for trying to get him to explain. He fails. Thanks for making me think about it more and to watch the full interview again.

by **pax** » Fri May 21, 2010 1:59 pm

Jack Conway for Senate.

http://jackconway.org/

by **gwen** » Fri May 21, 2010 3:00 pm

pax wrote:Hey gwen, I thought about what you said yesterday. Now I agree with you. At first I thought they were discussing esoteric theory. Now I understand they're talking about whether the public accommodations act of civil rights law should be overturned. Paul raised the issue. That's why Maddow asks. I respect Maddow for trying to get him to explain. He fails. Thanks for making me think about it more and to watch the full interview again.

Thank you, pax! :wink:

by **DocTar** » Fri May 21, 2010 11:29 pm

Maddow takes a lot of heat from idiots like Palin, who try to belittle a woman with brains. I admire the way she handled Paul. And frankly, Paul and his ilk scare me.

by **yankee-in-france** » Sat May 22, 2010 4:05 am

Yes, I think that anyone who is suggesting that businesses can select/refuse their customers in the 21st century is dangerous but if this is true, there are many dangerous people out there.

Between this guy and the Texas textbook debacle, it makes me wonder. Was America always like this or was it different? I think that it was different but maybe I am wrong. Maybe the hate was always there but I didn't see it. They don't like the Civil Rights law, they don't like Roe v. Wade, they don't want the holocaust to be taught .. geez, what is happening.

If you appear to be a Hispanic, scrap whether you're an American citizen, you better carry your birth certificate or naturalization papers with you or risk being detained by the police. This is bullshit, freedom it is not.

by **resigned** » Sat May 22, 2010 4:19 am

yankee-in-france wrote:Yes, I think that anyone who is suggesting that businesses can select/refuse their customers in the 21st century is dangerous but if this is true, there are many dangerous people out there.

Between this guy and the Texas textbook debacle, it makes me wonder. Was America always like this or was it different? I think that it was different but maybe I am wrong. Maybe the hate was always there but I didn't see it. They don't like the Civil Rights law, they don't like Roe v. Wade, they don't want the holocaust to be taught .. geez, what is happening.

If you appear to be a Hispanic, scrap whether you're an American citizen, you better carry your birth certificate or naturalization papers with you or risk being detained by the police. This is bullshit, freedom it is not.

They just want things back the way they used to be ...as if any of them were around back then. :roll:

by **DocTar** » Sat May 22, 2010 10:40 am

The best thing to come out of Rand Paul's winning the KY Republican primary, is the fact that he has been very revealing about what he truly stands for and believes. Does tha majority of angry, pissed off Americans who identify themselves with the Tea Party also believe Rand's libertarian message of racism and intolerance? I think the lines are beginning to form to the left and to the right of Paul's polarizing views. Republicans should be very worried.

by **pax** » Sat May 22, 2010 2:15 pm

Paul continues playing up the crazy with comments like Obama is too tough on British Petroleum and stop apologizing for our country. No wonder his staff made him cancel an appearance on Meet the Press. Kentucky voters have good reason to look at Conway for Senate. He should use the slogan Jack Conway - Practical and Sane.

The Refugees Unleashed

How Rand Paul can win in Kentucky, and still doom the GOP

How Rand Paul can win in Kentucky, and still doom the GOP

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