The Truth at Last

Why did Rand Paul become a sensation when he could have just as easily become what he was portrayed as one year ago, a novelty candidate with a fun personal story? Because he hustled, he dealt quickly and decisively with staff problems, he plugged into the tea party movement before doing so was obviously a political benefit, and he beat Grayson to the punch on multiple opportunities, like rallying for Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-Ky.) filibuster of unemployment benefits. Grayson has combated this with outreach to national conservatives like Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani -- foreign policy hawks -- in a manner that was too obvious for journalists to miss but too shadowy to avoid irritating Paul's campaign and his voters. And he has repeatedly been frazzled by Paul, going overboard to argue that his libertarian stances will disappoint social conservatives -- a strategy that bottomed out when a Grayson ally misled Dr. James Dobson on what Paul's abortion stance really was, something that so irritated Dobson that he eventually endorsed Paul.

Lots of conservatives get softballs on Fox News. Few have the hustle to run a serious Senate race. At the 11th hour, it's like Grayson still doesn't take Paul seriously.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rig...l_is_winn.html