Rand Paul is like Nigel Farage – except he might win
This rising Republican star Rand Paul combines a dull, reassuring manner with a Ukip-like insurgent appeal. It could take him to his party’s presidential candidacy
Tim Stanley
1 November 2014
When America’s National Institutes of Heath said that it hadn’t cured Ebola yet because of budget cuts, Senator Rand Paul had an acidic answer. No, he told an audience of Republicans, the problem was not underfunding. It was bad priorities. ‘Have you seen what the NIH spends money on?’ he asked. ‘$939,000 spent to discover whether or not male fruit flies would like to consort with younger female fruit flies. $117,000 spent to determine if most monkeys are right-handed and like to throw poop with their right hands.’ And best of all, $2.4 million for an ‘origami condom’, which suggests something shaped like a swan. In fact, it’s modelled on the accordion.
This anecdote is a great introduction to Rand Paul — a libertarian with a sense of humour and a range of views that you’d imagine make him a pariah in the conservative movement. He is antiwar, wants a softer approach to tackling narcotics and has been a vocal critic of the national security establishment. Yet polling shows that he could be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 because, like him, a lot of Americans are furious at the tragic farce that is their government. To understand the rise of libertarianism, you have to understand where Paul came from and where America is headed.
Key to Rand Paul’s success is that he looks normal. Say ‘libertarian Republican’ to many people and they picture a guy in a tinfoil hat who keeps one too many guns in his Wyoming tree house. Such a constituency indeed exists, and it worked hard for Rand’s father, Ron, when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2008 and 2012. Ron Paul wanted to end the War on Terror completely and reduce government to a size that could be safely drowned in a bathtub. He blamed 9/11 on the government’s nannyish refusal to allow guns on aeroplanes. Rand inherited his father’s ideology and interest in medicine (Ron’s an obstetrician-gynaecologist, Rand an ophthalmologist). But where Ron’s crowd was loud and abrasive, Rand has done his best to cultivate a far more mainstream image.
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Originally Posted by dannno
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