Rand Um Chance? / 5-23-10

Pun geeks get the hottest girls. Didn't you know?

But on to the meat of this post. (Although to be honest, it's more of a tofu dish. Stir-fried, with veggies. Mushrooms and peppers and those baby corn thingies. Smothered in hot chili lime sauce. With sesame seeds. Free advice to self: eat well FIRST. THEN write blog.)

Rand Paul, the son of extreme left-wing presidential candidate Ron Paul, dipped his toe into national politics this month by winning the Republican primary in the race to succeed outgoing Senator Jim Bunning, who has been seniling his way right out of office for some time now.

Rand, who I'll hopelessly hope is not named for Ayn, falls neatly within political parameters set by Tea Party activists. (I think they should officially go with the slogan, "Give me libertarianism or give me death," but they so seldom listen to me these days.)

Whatever. You get the idea. Rand is reflexively anti-tax, anti-deficit and opposes basically any federal governmental power not expressly outlined in the Constitution. And that sounds great. In theory. Until you get into actual governance, and the feds decide that maybe it's not a good idea to keep discriminating against nonwhites or the disabled. So we get legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act, designed to tell people with the power to act bigoted, "No, we really mean it when we say you should treat folks with dignity and equality. Now shape up."

Only Rand opposes and/or criticizes these laws.

Can you see how this might pose a problem in a general election? Sure, Rand can excite the conservative base in a primary. He's a fresh face with a pedigree. He's brilliant in certain ways -- I mean, the man's an ophthalmologist who has a degree from the Duke School of Medicine, for Hippocrates' sake.

But statewide elections don't favor extremists. Even in Kentucky, which went for McCain by 16 points (!), Libertarians poll between 0 and 6 percent, depending on the epoch. That being said, had Rand run for U.S. Congress in a friendly district, I believe he could have waltzed into office. He is technically a Republican. I guess. (I should rephrase. This is Kentucky; he's more likely to do-si-do into a congressional seat, to a backdrop of an absolutely bitchin' bluegrass band.) Oh, and Rand's opponent, Jack Conway, is well-known as the state's Attorney General.

That being said part deux, I don't think it's outside the realm that Rand could win anyway. Midterms are all about enthusiasm, and the TPers are nothing if not energetic. Enough Kentuckians (Kentuckers?) are eager to put the brakes on the Ovalest Socialist (I just made that up and I am frakking proud of it, thank you very much) that they might just go for anyone with an R next to his (not her) name.

(Three asides in one sentence? Rrho boy.)

Additionally, Democrats outnumber Republicans in KY by 600,000, although I confess that's a bit of a misleading statistic. Still, that's a lot of moderately moderate Dempublicrats Rand would have to attract. At least he's going it about it the right way so far: his election website is splashed with Obama blue.

Oh yeah, but those unfortunate statements about how we don't really need to step in and stop injustice, it'll just stop itself, like it always has. The free market will take care of it. No, in that department, help is flooding in. Sarah Palin weighed in for Rand, that's got to be good for something. "You know, they're looking for that 'gotcha' moment, and that's what it evidently appears to be that they did with Rand Paul," Palin said over the weekend. Sarah is a helpful lady, if you're trying to win an election. Great track record. Stayed away from Scott Brown so he could win; campaigned for that stooge in New York last year who lost. Also, that 2008 thing. Mmm hmm. Dispatch her immediately.

Rand is also pro-life. This seems like a plus in Kentucky. He's so pro-life, in fact, that he even opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest. This is ideologically pure. After all, if life begins at conception, abortion is murder no matter how the conception came about. But try selling that opinion on a large scale. Not a lot of buyers.

It's not all bad, though. Rand, like his famouser dad, is smartly in favor of legalizing marijuana. That ought to shore up Kentucky's substantial evangelical vote just fine. You tell 'em, Rand!