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Thread: The Courtship: How Rand Paul Became a 'Chamber Republican'

  1. #1

    The Courtship: How Rand Paul Became a 'Chamber Republican'

    Rand Paul had screwed up, and he knew it.

    It was June and the Kentucky senator was in Texas speaking to a group of tea-party activists when he got loose with his words. "Chamber of Commerce is fine, I was a member of the Chamber of Commerce," Paul told the state's Republican Liberty Caucus. "But a Chamber of Commerce Republican is not going to win a national election."

    It was a bold statement for a Republican plotting his own path to presidency. Too bold, he and his advisers realized almost immediately. While Paul has nurtured an iconoclastic libertarian image—stomping across Washington in cowboy boots and jeans, casting himself as a rare Republican willing to go to Berkeley, say, or reach out to black voters—he has also methodically courted the power class here in Washington.

    Slapping at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was not part of that game plan. Instead, it represented a political low in his relationship with the nation's most powerful business lobby. But by the fall, Paul wasn't swiping at the business lobby anymore; he was starring in their television ads in four Senate races, including spots to air in crucial early presidential battlegrounds of Iowa and New Hampshire. How Paul recovered from that verbal stumble and resuscitated his relationship with the chamber says a lot about the balancing—some say contortionist—act he is attempting as he readies a White House run.

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...lican-20141214



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  3. #2
    Broad coalitions will be required to win
    __________________________________________________ ________________
    "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Collins View Post
    Broad coalitions will be required to win
    Yep--as my avatar suggests

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by NACBA View Post
    Yep--as my avatar suggests

    Screw Warren

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    Screw Warren
    No thanks.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by NACBA View Post
    Yep--as my avatar suggests
    We have standards though. I don't think I want to win that badly.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Collins View Post
    Broad sellouts will be required to win
    ..

  9. #8
    The Chamber of Commerce is not part of any coalition that I want to be a part of, as their most basic prerequisite is that when the chips are down they get to call all of the shots.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Collins View Post
    Broad coalitions will be required to win
    Yes indeed.

    Quote Originally Posted by William Tell View Post
    We have standards though. I don't think I want to win that badly.
    "We tend to want to fix everything all at once in a grand bargain and if you got a Republican and a Democrat, you might only agree on 10 percent of the issues, 20 percent. Why don’t we work on the 20 percent we can agree to instead of always we have to have a grand bargain?" --Rand Paul
    “Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?” - Oxenstiern

    Violence will not save us. Let us love one another, for love is from God.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Inkblots View Post
    "We tend to want to fix everything all at once in a grand bargain and if you got a Republican and a Democrat, you might only agree on 10 percent of the issues, 20 percent. Why don’t we work on the 20 percent we can agree to instead of always we have to have a grand bargain?" --Rand Paul
    Well, with Warren its more like 3%, sure but sure, If Rand agrees with her on anything he can work with her those issue/s But that profile pic suggests to me at least, a Warren/Paul ticket. Which is not a good idea at all.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  13. #11
    The article discredits its own premise. It says that Paul and staff made a terrible blunder. Then the article later explains that they had not. So the mistake may be that they jumped through hoops for no reason. Which the article doesn't address. In the end, it seems Paul made friends at the Chamber Of Commerce essentially by a miscalculation, which may prove fruitful. To me, this is the more interesting aspect of the story.
    Last edited by anaconda; 12-16-2014 at 02:14 AM.



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