Rand Paul Not Scoring Any Points

I've always said the Libertarian Party is a place Republicans flee when they're disgruntled with their establishment. I'm sure the ranks of the Libertarians rose dramatically during the Bush years. As I'm also sure if you poll those claiming to be Libertarians, you'll find they love to vote Republican. Ideologically speaking, the two parties have nothing in common. Frankly speaking, the two parties aren't even on the same radar. But Republicans think libertarianism means small government and that's enough for them. Hence why we get people like Rand Paul being able to claim he's libertarian simply because he opposes certain realms of government but runs on the GOP ticket. He also gets to claim he's a tea bagger and it's not questioned either. He's like the Trinity, all three in the same. It's the modern Republican movement, get used to it.

Also something Republicans think they inherit from their libertarian nature is their opposition to legislation that fundamentally changes our nation's social structure. Take the Civil Rights Act for instance. Rand Paul went on Rachel Maddow last night where he stated that he thought the decision of businesses to serve certain people like blacks is better left to the privacy of the business establishment.  In other words, he doesn't support the Civil Rights Act and business should be the ones to decide who they allow in or not.  Paul's reasoning is he feels local government serves a better function of protecting a basic equality.  Such things like allowing blacks to eat at the same restaurant as whites should be handled locally.  Or as he also stated on NPR yesterday:

A lot of things that were actually in the bill I’m actually in favor of,” said Paul. Hinting at what he doesn’t “favor,” Paul added that “a lot of things can be handled locally.”

There's so many problems with super smart guy Paul's answer mindset that it's hard to know where to begin.  Real quickly, a Libertarian would believe that everyone is equal and that government exists for the very reason to ensure that equality-- most specifically at the federal level.

Moreover, the very reason for the 1965 Civil Rights Act was because local governments were doing a lousy job of protecting people's basic rights-- rights that are federally guaranteed to us in the Constitution.  By leaving it up to local governments we created things like Jim Crow and other fundamentally flawed laws like sundown laws.  Allowing private businesses to answer locally failed.  It failed miserably.  There's no reason to go back to it.  And there's no reason to suggest it worked and overriding was unnecessary.  It's hard to believe that someone who believes the Civil Rights Act is not supportable is still seeking national office this day and age.  I'm not sure I can quite fathom it.  I thought we were so far passed it that I would never see it in my lifetime.  Republicans just keep wanting to pull us back in, however.

Like I said yesterday, the best way to beat Randall Paul is to make him jitter.  Make him talk, he loves to talk so it shouldn't be hard.  Don't let him talk only about generic labels of Big Government versus Freedom.  Make him go specific, make it about issues and policies.  A nod to Rachel Maddow for the interview and NPR for pressing him on specifics.  It seems, too, that his opponent Jack Conway is doing exactly what he needs to do, keep him jittery.