As I said in the case of Ted Cruz, so I say now about Rand Paul: In God's name, why?:
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky entered the campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination Tuesday with a declaration that he's running for the White House to "return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government."
Well, that's all fine and good, and certainly the country needs that desperately, but Senator Paul, you are not - clearly - the man to bring that about.
At a splashy kickoff rally, Paul promised a government restrained by the Constitution and beholden no more to special interests.
There's that cliche again - "special interests". You know what, Rand? EVERYBODY is a "special interest," because we are all individuals, and there's no such thing as the "collective interest" or the "common good". If you believe otherwise, then that's a plank of your platform that you've done an outstanding job of keeping under wraps.
"I have a message, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words," he told cheering supporters. "We have come to take our country back."
Yes, we have, Senator. Which is why you ought to be backing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker instead of wasting everybody's time with this "Daddy issues" vanity campaign.
Hours earlier, he prefaced his speech with a message on his website saying: "I am running for president."
Paul is a fierce critic of Washington, where he is in his first term as a senator but seldom in line with his party's leadership.
Something he's evidently counting on, for some strange reason.
A banner over the stage in Louisville proclaimed: "Defeat the Washington machine. Unleash the American dream."
Without being more discriminating about that description, the proclaimed goal is unattainable.
Paul's challenge now is to convince Republican primary voters and caucus-goers that his is a vision worthy of the GOP presidential nomination, a prize twice denied his father, former Representative Ron Paul of Texas-14, who joined him at Tuesday's announcement.
And Rand is his father's son. He's Ron with a perm and a modicum of PR discretion. And like his dad, he has zero chance at the 2016 GOP nomination, which I think he knows, since according to Kentucky election law, he can't run for POTUS and re-election to his Senate seat at the same time, and I don't think he'd sacrifice the latter on a doomed presidential run.
Put another way, Rand Paul is what you'd get if Ted Cruz were Anglo. And I cannot fully or adequately express how well and truly sick I'm becoming of freshman senators running for their seats and then declaring their presidential bids thirty-five seconds after their Senate opponent has conceded. Or, in Cruz's and Paul's instances, dropping hints the size of Near-Earth Objects until they could declare.
I urge you, I beg you, I command you: STOP CLUTTERING UP THE GOP PRIMARIES AND GET OUT OF SCOTT WALKER's WAY. Unless, of course, Ted and Rand are really just running interference for Jeb Bush, in which case....
....it makes perfect sense.
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