Rand (I'm not a racist - I only pander to racists) Paul

Joe Conason had an excellent article in Salon.com about the candidate from Kentucky:
"To understand Rand Paul's agonized contortions over America's civil rights consensus, let's review the tainted pedigree of the movement that reared him. Specifically, both the Kentucky Republican Senate nominee and his father, Ron Paul, have been closely associated over the past two decades with a faction that described itself as 'paleolibertarian,' led by former Ron Paul aide Lew Rockwell and the late writer Murray Rothbard. They eagerly forged an alliance with the 'paleoconservatives' behind Patrick Buchanan, the columnist and former presidential candidate whose trademarks are nativism, racism and anti-Semitism."

. . .

"The last time that anyone examined the details of the Paul family's gamy history was back in 2008, when the New Republic dug up copies of newsletters sent out under Ron's name to raise money, and found that they were replete with ugly references to blacks, Martin Luther King, homosexuals and other targets of the racist far right. At the time, Reason magazine, a libertarian magazine that opposed the 'paleo' deviation, gave the most revealing account of its movement's degenerate element.

"Following Ron Paul's dismal performance in the 1988 presidential campaign as the Libertarian Party candidate, Rockwell and Rothbard 'championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist "paleoconservatives," producing a flurry of articles and manifestos whose racially charged talking points and vocabulary mirrored the controversial Paul newsletters' uncovered by the New Republic. Rothbard died in 1995, but in 2008 Rockwell was still at Paul's side as a top advisor, 'accompanying him to major media appearances; promoting his candidacy on the LewRockwell.com blog; publishing his books; and peddling an array of the avuncular Texas congressman's recent writings and audio recordings.'

"According to Sanchez and Weigel, the tone of Paul's newsletters shifted to reflect his political circumstances. Between his first presidential campaign and his return to Congress in 1996 as a Republican, they were filled with slurs against blacks generally and Martin Luther King Jr. in particular, including the accusation that the civil rights leader 'seduced underage girls and boys.' Rothbard hated King deeply, describing him in November 1994 as 'a socialist, egalitarian, coercive integrationist, and vicious opponent of private-property rights ... who was long under close Communist Party control,' and concluding that 'there is one excellent litmus test which can set up a clear dividing line between genuine conservatives and neoconservatives, and between paleolibertarians and what we can now call "left-libertarians." And that test is where one stands on "Doctor" King.' (Then again, he hated Lincoln too, whom he disparaged in the same essay as 'one of the major despots of American history.')"

. . .

There is a reason why Rand Paul is choosing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as his primary example of the government over-stepping its boundries. There are a lot of other pieces of legislature at which he could have taken aim: anti-trust laws, OSHA, the newly-passed financial reform law... But in speaking out against the Civil Rights Act he's secretly winking at the far, far-right wing racist factions of the GOP. This is just like Reagan giving his first major campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi where civil rights workers were killed in the 1960's. In speaking about the importance of "State Rights" at that speech he was giving a little wink and nod to racist southerners in a code that they clearly understood.

This veiled, secretive embracing of racism is present at every level of GOP campaigning. From the '08 presidential campaign where McCain did nothing to dispel or disavow the rampant racism that infected his campaign. It was only when he couldn't put the genie back in the bottle that he actually took the trouble to address the xenophobia and racism that began to overshadow his message. Just look at the TV ad campaign Linda McMahon is pushing in Connecticut: the whitest, white people in the whole state talking about how Linda is "one of them" and "understands their concerns." It may be a bit more innocuous than Sarah Palin blathering about "Real Americans" in redneck central but it essentially sends the same message.

It's Not Every Day...

...that I agree with Ann Coulter:

"Republican consultants are doing a wonderful job raising expectations sky-high for the November elections, so that now, even if Republicans do smashingly well, it will look like a defeat (and an across-the-board endorsement of Obama's agenda). Thanks, Republicans!
 
"That's what happened in the 1998 congressional elections, nearly foiling Clinton's impeachment. It's what happened to the Conservative Party in Britain a week ago.
 
"And that's what happened this week in the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, formerly represented by Rep. John Murtha.
 
"Note to Republicans: Whenever possible, victory parties should be held after the election, not before it."
 
I'll go a step further, though.
 
The Democratic victory in PA's 12th district and, more importantly, Rand Paul's (I still cannot get over the fact that idiotarian Ron Paul named his son after Ayn Rand) defeat of the establishment GOP candidate in Kentucky's primary on Tuesday does not bode well for the G.O.P. at all. There were at least three other primary races, none of which got the attention that the Kentucky race recieved where a Tea Party-backed candidate defeated the establishment-backed G.O.P. candidate. It only illustrates how far to the extreme right the party is migrating. While it's true that usually only the die-hard, semi-fanatical part of either party votes in the primaries, what happened on Tuesday, I think, is a pretty clear sign of the direction in which the Republican Party is headed. The Tea-Party is highjacking the G.O.P. The inmates are now running the asylum.
 
This is nothing but good news for the Democrats. Fewer and fewer people outside of the fringe are really taking the nonsense being spewed by the far right very seriously. Most sane, normal people know that President Obama is not a Muslim, Socialist Manchurian Candidate poised to overthrow our way of life. The teabaggers polls lower than both the G.O.P. and the Democratic Party. The more mainstream candidates that fall to their burn and purge, the greater that chance that those seats will wind up being held by Democrats. The name Dede Scozzafava ring a bell for anyone?
 
Not to mention that Rand Paul has already shot himself in the foot... and we're not talking with some paltry .22 pea shooter. He pulled out a .357 Magnum and blew his damn toes off. One whole day after winning the primary he went on national TV and said that he supported the Civil Rights Act of 1965, but... ...thinks that the ignorant bigots of the time had the God-given first amendment right to tell African-Americans to get the hell away from their damn lunch counters and out of their frickin' store.
 
WTF!?
 
Yes, that's right. While he's all for making sure that the government doesn't discriminate against an individual because of the color of their skin but that they have no right to tell a privately-owned business that they cannot discriminate for the same reasons. To his credit, he did say that he, as an individual, would protest such an abhorrent practice. He's not bigoted; he's just an idiot. Just like his whack-a-doodle father he's all for abolishing income tax, the Department of Education, repealing laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act that protect individuals from being exploited by employers. In short, all the usual idiotic Libertarian ideas that would send us back in time to a point where child labor would be tolerated, your meat and produce isn't inspected to make sure it won't kill you and monopolies like Standard Oil run the country instead of the voting populace. Doesn't that sound quaint!?

No manners

Via Balloon Juice:

"This kind of pointless, macho posturing is no doubt part of the reason Rand Paul is a teabag icon: 

"After winning Kentucky's Republican primary Tuesday night, Bowling Green ophthalmologist Rand Paul refused to take the call of congratulations from opponent Trey Grayson, according to Grayson's campaign manager Nate Hodson.

"Hodson did not elaborate, except to say 'it happened.'

"'This is truly a classless act in politics,' said Marc Wilson, a Republican lobbyist and friend of Trey Grayson."

 . . .

I'm sorry, but Rand's behavior isn't "macho posturing" or any such thing. It's just rude and asshole-like misbehavior. I guess that what comes with being named after an idiot, misguided author (Ayn Rand) by a father who is just as big an idiot (Ron Paul).