Rand's first blow to Trump lands hard

[Dianne]

Another huge mistake Rand has made is attacking Trump. Trump and Carson are riding high because they're viewed as outsiders. Rand should have been attacking establishment front runner Jeb Bush. The mood of the Republican electorate right now is the establishment is enemy number one!! So by attacking Trump the biggest outsider Rand now comes across as an establishment insider trying to help Bush. .

I'm surprised he hasn't figured this out yet. Rick Perry called Trump a cancer on conservatism and he's all but vanished. Rand is close to vanishing.

I agree with you, although it seems like an unpopular stance to take on this forum. It blew my mind when Rand came out of left field attacking the guy leading the polls, who is known to hit back five times as hard. Now Trump has it in for him, and gets in his digs against Rand any time he can. And we have an ignorant electorate, that hears "Bad Rand" coming out of Trump's mouth, and they tune Rand out. It was a very amatuer and costly mistake Rand may not recover from.

[Xenliad]

Unfortunately, I think that is the case. What can we do to help change that? Any ideas?

Paul needs to talk more about himself. If he attacks people on a position, he should contrast their position with his own. I bet most people don't know he wasn't a politician prior to 2011, and I bet that most people don't even know he's a doctor.

[acptulsa]

I agree with you, although it seems like an unpopular stance to take on this forum. It blew my mind when Rand came out of left field attacking the guy leading the polls, who is known to hit back five times as hard. Now Trump has it in for him, and gets in his digs against Rand any time he can. And we have an ignorant electorate, that hears "Bad Rand" coming out of Trump's mouth, and they tune Rand out. It was a very amatuer and costly mistake Rand may not recover from.

Trump can't even come close to beating Carson in a head to head matchup.

Only 30% of the Republican electorate would even consider voting for him. Which leaves 70% who are in no way under his spell.

Is it wiser to do that 30% a favor knowing they're buried deep in the cognitive dissonance and might not ever notice, or to do that 70% the favor of getting the orange-haired clown out of their faces once and for all?

[William R]

I agree with you, although it seems like an unpopular stance to take on this forum. It blew my mind when Rand came out of left field attacking the guy leading the polls, who is known to hit back five times as hard. Now Trump has it in for him, and gets in his digs against Rand any time he can. And we have an ignorant electorate, that hears "Bad Rand" coming out of Trump's mouth, and they tune Rand out. It was a very amatuer and costly mistake Rand may not recover from.

Rand has not run a good campaign. He thinks the establishment marginalized Ron so he decided to play ball with them!! Even on foreign policy.

Ted Cruz is a phony IMHO, but when he called Mitch McConnell a liar he cemented his outsider bonafides

[Occam's Banana]

Coke now owns Dr. Pepper

ETA: sorta

Actually, the Dr. Pepper Company (Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Inc.) owns Dr. Pepper.

The Dr. Pepper Company licenses bottling/distribution rights to various bottlers/distributors. In some places, Dr. Pepper is licensed to Pepsi bottlers/distributors; in other places, it is licensed to Coca-Cola bottlers/distributors; in still other places, it is licensed to independent bottlers/distributors. (It used to be - and may still be - that if you bought a Dr. Pepper in or nearer to St. Louis, it was bottled by a Coke distributor, while if you bought one in or nearer to Kansas City, it was bottled by a Pepsi distributor. Or maybe it's the other way around - I don't remember exactly. The bottler/distributor is identified somewhere on the container.) IIRC, though, Coke has most of the bottling/distribution rights to Dr. Pepper outside of the United States. And back in the '80s or '90s, the Feds prevented the Dr. Pepper Company from merging with Coca-Cola Company. (As you may at this point have discerned, I am a fan of Dr. Pepper ...)

ETA: In line with the above, you may have noticed that in some places, Dr. Pepper is offered with Pepsi products (in vending machines, fast-food soda fountains, and the like) - whereas in other places, Dr. Pepper is offered with Coca-Cola products. (The same goes for Seven Up, too.)

[LibertyEagle]

Paul needs to talk more about himself. If he attacks people on a position, he should contrast their position with his own. I bet most people don't know he wasn't a politician prior to 2011, and I bet that most people don't even know he's a doctor.

Yeah, I agree. But, it's his campaign to run.

[LibertyEagle]

Rand has not run a good campaign. He thinks the establishment marginalized Ron so he decided to play ball them!! Even on foreign policy.

Why would being marginalized be a plus? Because then you have no shot in hell of getting ANYTHING accomplished. Yeah, his plan may not work, but at least in the Senate, it was getting him all kinds of air time to start moving people's beliefs. It was working. As far as foreign policy is concerned, maybe he doesn't agree with Ron that every single soldier should be yanked out of all 150 countries they are in now. Or, maybe he does, but thinks the most doable way of changing our foreign policy is to cut foreign aid to everyone first. Again, I said DOABLE. Not getting up there and spouting a bunch of crap and failing, but hey, the anarchists would like it.

[erowe1]

Proposing electric fences in 2010 and mocking them in 2015?

He immediately clarified back in 2010 that he didn't really mean electric fences.

[adam220891]

Rand looks like am establishment candidate due to his attacks on Trump. Go read Facebook and news article comments. It sucks because he's an outsider and shouldn't be carrying this baggage. Maybe the neocons made promises for a 2020 run if he went after Trump, idk.

[acptulsa]

Rand looks like am establishment candidate due to his attacks on Trump. Go read Facebook and news article comments. It sucks because he's an outsider and shouldn't be carrying this baggage. Maybe the neocons made promises for a 2020 run if he went after Trump, idk.

Nonsense. They wanted to misdirect the anti-establishment fervor, so they invented the silly-assed meme that a sitting Senator that does not take bribes is Establishment because he's a sitting Senator, while the CEO who publicly admits to owning the other Senators is anti-Establishment because he's not a sitting Senator.

It isn't Rand's fault people are dumb enough to buy that. And he'll clearly need a lot of help from us to overcome it.

[klamath]

Nonsense. They wanted to misdirect the anti-establishment fervor, so they invented the silly-assed meme that a sitting Senator that does not take bribes is Establishment because he's a sitting Senator, while the CEO who publicly admits to owning the other Senators is anti-Establishment because he's not a sitting Senator.

It isn't Rand's fault people are dumb enough to buy that. And he'll clearly need a lot of help from us to overcome it.

Trump admits he buys everyone and states flat out that politicians do what he wants because he pays them, yet he claims he is against the politicians that do everything he wants......Hmmmmm

[acptulsa]

Trump admits he buys everyone and states flat out that politicians do what he wants because he pays them, yet he claims he is against the politicians that do everything he wants......Hmmmmm

And Boobus Americanus knows they're getting screwed hard by Congress, and believes Trump when he says that he's Congress' boss man, and still believes him when he says he's a populist, and loves them and wants them to be happy.

So, why is he paying Congress to screw them again? Am I the only one unclear on this concept?

[Peace&Freedom]

I agree with you, although it seems like an unpopular stance to take on this forum. It blew my mind when Rand came out of left field attacking the guy leading the polls, who is known to hit back five times as hard. Now Trump has it in for him, and gets in his digs against Rand any time he can. And we have an ignorant electorate, that hears "Bad Rand" coming out of Trump's mouth, and they tune Rand out. It was a very amatuer and costly mistake Rand may not recover from.

For better or worse, Trump is positioned as the anti-establishment candidate (or the main one at least). Instead of directly attacking Trump, Rand should have attacked the establishment's overreaction to and bullying of Trump, while restating the merits of Trump's points on immigration, trade and other issues raised by him.

The triangulation would have painted Rand as the "better" anti-establishment statesman, instead of a "me too" critic piling onto the Donald. So by Rand mouthing establishment rhetoric and attacking Trump, he has ended up positioning himself as another guy opposing the anti-establishment candidate, which makes him appear to be just another establishment guy, instead of a different kind of Republican.

[radiofriendly]

I know this is a bit left field, but since we are talking about strategy and someone mentioned Rand taking a softer stance towards Trump in order to identify himself w/ Trump's (fake) outsider status. I wrote this a week or so ago:

Lost in the nonstop spectacle that is Donald Trump is the fact that he is firmly on the record as being against the Iraq war. He brought his opposition to the war up in the recent debate and here he is (8 years ago) opposing the war and correctly predicting the chaos we see today. Now, of course, Trump is all over the place on other foreign policy issues, but this one issue is a perfect window for Rand Paul to grab the ball in the next debate and talk about blowback when it comes to arming Syrian rebels and foreign aid. Picture Senator Paul saying something like this in the upcoming debate,

"Now, Mr. Trump, there is an issue that we agree on. It was a grave mistake for conservatives to support the invasion of Iraq. Destabilizing that region has led to the rise of ISIS and Christians fleeing the region–did you know that Saddam, bad as he was, allowed Christians in his government? And now we have folks on this stage (Like Rubio and Jeb(?)) who supported Obama’s effort to arm Syrian rebels. And guess what? Now many of those weapons are predictably in the hands of ISIS…(Fireworks ensue…)"

Rand Paul needs to triangulate on this issue and use Trump to his advantage. My gut tells me that Trump respects a fighter and his feud with Senator Paul is of a different nature than his easy put-downs of Lindsey Graham and Rick Perry. It’ll be interesting to see what happens…

More: http://iroots.org/2015/08/20/is-trum...ndow-for-paul/

[Feelgood]

Quite the over statement for a thread subject.

Rand's first blow to Trump lands hard

Where did this first blow against Trump land so hard, other than this thread? Seen no mention of it anywhere in the media. Nothing on Drudge. Not even a blip in the Google News search. So how exactly is this a hard blow to Trump and who really cares?

[cindy25]

the problem is Trump wants to be hit. as for Jeb, he is finished. hitting him is a waste of time. hitting Ben carson or Carly-foolish. so best to just be pro-liberty, anti-TSA, anti-NSA , anti-boots on the ground, and hope they take each other down.

[devil21]

After all you have seen with Trump voters you believe THAT?

I'm still not convinced there are many 'Trump voters'. Trusting anything from the media that...well, trumpets, Trump is a folly. Most of the online stuff I see is clearly Trump astroturf shills pushing whatever the agenda of the day is. If you frequent the same forums over and over the patterns of shillspeak emerge. Polls are manipulated, crowds are paid for, etc. Wary of falling for the notion that Trump has a huge following lest we repeat Obama 08 where if enough people believe it to be true, the outcome doesn't really matter.

I don't like purity tests but I'll make an exception when Rand scores some points for calling out Trump for being a Hillary plant. I just wish he would go for the jugular on it since Fiorina already usurped that rhetoric during the first early debate. She will be on the main stage for CNN and she will come out attacking Trump on it again, guaranteed. Rand needs to be FIRST to remind that he forced Trump to pledge, if only to take alpha position on the issue.

[RonPaulwillWin]

Look down......

[RonPaulwillWin]

Ron Paul is sitting at home on a couch recording himself on youtube. I'm only worried about what Rand is doing. Not what someone else would/wouldnt do.

This.

[Chieppa1]

Trump is not the anti-establishment candidate with anyone who actually knows what the establishments is. When is this forum going to stop worrying about what Rand can not change? He can't convince idiots to vote for him. It was Ron's problem also. If Rand starting dumbing down his message for the mouth-breathers, I wouldn't even show up to vote.

[RonPaulGeorge&Ringo]

Why, because you say so?

Because logic.

Why should I care again?

You should care that you are so clueless, so you can better yourself.

I digress. ...

bankruptcy laws. ...

bull$#@!,

call me a moron ...

a Byronic hero.

his business model
...
his ego will probably have to rely on something else for a boost.



malarkey

Trump's ego ....

So he's basically just a step shy of being a monk


the guy has used the laws to his advantage in

Boring.

turn dog-$#@! into diamonds

Boring.

You are all over the place. Try to stay on point. The question is, is Trump part of the establishment? ( and I guess the even stupider question, Is he working for Hillary Clinton?) Not if he's a liar or a demagogue or a good guy. You've offered absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, cable news has spent all day attacking Trump because he didn't know the name of some Iranian general. C'mon.

use the government to ruin your competitors

When did this happen?

[RonPaulGeorge&Ringo]

Unfortunately, I think that is the case. What can we do to help change that? Any ideas?

It's something Rand (and his campaign managers) have to change themselves. We can tell them what we think they're doing wrong, but that's about it. If you know anyone who speaks to Rand, tell them your concerns.

[jkob]

Trump is doing this to ensure the rest of the field supports him when he's the nominee. I am increasing believing he will be the nominee and the RNC has made a deal with him, Jeb/Walker/Rubio aren't walking out and never will, he is polling as well or better than the rest of the field right now.

[erowe1]

as for Jeb, he is finished

Why do you think this? He still is far ahead of every other establishment candidate in every respect.

[erowe1]

Jeb/Walker/Rubio aren't walking out and never will

Most likely 2 out of the 3 will.

[SilentBull]

This is really frustrating. A local radio host was defending Trump against callers who were saying Trump isn't a conservative. The host says "Trump is pro-life, believes in traditional marriage and the only people he wants to raise taxes on are the hedge fund guys, which actually makes sense because they've been using loop-holes to not pay their fair share."

This is a "conservative" talk show host, using the same language as liberals in order to convince voters that supporting higher taxes on the rich is a conservative principle. The next caller thanked the host for clearing things up because he was one of those who "used to think that Trump isn't a conservative."

Maybe this is Trump's job. To finally complete the party's transformation. It may be all over after this election. If Rand can't get it done, no one can.

[klamath]

Because logic.



You should care that you are so clueless, so you can better yourself.



You are all over the place. Try to stay on point. The question is, is Trump part of the establishment? ( and I guess the even stupider question, Is he working for Hillary Clinton?) Not if he's a liar or a demagogue or a good guy. You've offered absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, cable news has spent all day attacking Trump because he didn't know the name of some Iranian general. C'mon.



When did this happen?

Their attacking because he is an ass, "gotcha questions" wah wah wah!. "that interviewer is third rate" wah wah wah!

[CPUd]

This is really frustrating. A local radio host was defending Trump against callers who were saying Trump isn't a conservative. The host says "Trump is pro-life, believes in traditional marriage and the only people he wants to raise taxes on are the hedge fund guys, which actually makes sense because they've been using loop-holes to not pay their fair share."

This is a "conservative" talk show host, using the same language as liberals in order to convince voters that supporting higher taxes on the rich is a conservative principle. The next caller thanked the host for clearing things up because he was one of those who "used to think that Trump isn't a conservative."

Maybe this is Trump's job. To finally complete the party's transformation. It may be all over after this election. If Rand can't get it done, no one can.

I heard something very similar on local radio. A caller was saying he was trying to promote Trump to his friends and all they do is laugh at him, ask things like "how is he going to get Mexico to pay for the wall?"
Radio host asks, "do they listen to what Trump says?"
Caller , "no, they just call him a liberal"
Radio host, "tell them he would just subtract the cost of the wall from whatever aid we are already sending to Mexico"

[r3volution 3.0]

Ron Paul would not sign this pledge. Just saying.

The reason for hitting Trump with this is not that it's a terrible thing to refuse the pledge; it's that Trump's garbage in any case, for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with any pledge, and should be hit with anything and everything that could possibly hurt him in the eyes of GOP voters (for many of whom, right or wrong, the pledge is a big deal).

I'd be less inclined to side with someone who suddenly became anti-establishment about 5 minutes before declaring himself a candidate.

This is a clueless statement. Trump has been speaking out against the elite program to deindustrialize and unemploy America for almost 30 years, not for five minutes.

Dey durker jerbs?

[hells_unicorn]

I heard something very similar on local radio. A caller was saying he was trying to promote Trump to his friends and all they do is laugh at him, ask things like "how is he going to get Mexico to pay for the wall?"
Radio host asks, "do they listen to what Trump says?"
Caller , "no, they just call him a liberal"
Radio host, "tell them he would just subtract the cost of the wall from whatever aid we are already sending to Mexico"

You gotta be kidding me, we've got "conservative" radio hosts trying to argue that using our own money that would hypothetically go to Mexico to build a wall that will never likely be built is the same as making Mexico pay for it?

Forget asking if Trump is a conservative, we need to ask whether Trump's supporters even know what a conservative actually is.