For those of us who followed his father, Ron Paul, you’d think we should definitely be supporting his son, Rand Paul, in the 2016 election. Undoubtedly, he’s the most libertarian candidate on the national stage. If we’ve learned anything over the last few elections, it should be that the lesser of two evils is still evil. Just because one person is slightly better than the other, doesn’t mean that we should vote for them. Looking back at the 2012 elections, Ron and Rand both made some very disturbing decisions that make many people question their true motives.
2012 was a huge year for Paul supporters because this was the first time that a third party candidate, Ron Paul, won the Iowa State caucuses. Despite that stunning victory, the Washington Blog was reporting that Ron Paul has seen the light, thrown in the towel, and ended his campaign. Numerous videos and statements came out from supporters and campaign personnel saying the complete opposite.
In fact, Jesse Benton, the Campaign Chairman replied to these reports by saying, “We are absolutely not dropping out of this race! We are focusing our efforts squarely on winning delegates and party leadership positions at state conventions.” Campaign for Liberty even sent out a newsletter to supporters that assured them the fight was not over. Unfortunately, I can’t directly link to this newsletter because it has been removed from their site, but you can read about it in this Policy Mic report by Allen Stevo titled, “Ron Paul Has Not Quit: It’s the Delegates, Dummy.”
Yet, even with all this reassurance by the campaign, the biggest news was yet to come. On June 7th, 2012, Rand Paul announced that he was endorsing Mitt Romney on the Sean Hannity Show. This was seen as a backstabbing betrayal by many libertarians and those who supported both Paul campaigns for so long, especially when you consider the RNC in Tampa wasn’t scheduled for another two months! What happened to the delegates strategy? Grace Wyler of Business Insider wrote about this sudden turn in a report called, “Here’s The REAL Reason Why Rand Paul Endorsed Mitt Romney” where she claimed it was simply a “political ploy” to set him up for 2016. The idea being that if he supports the party’s nominated candidate, he’d gain the respect needed to be nominated himself later.
For those that don’t know, Goldman Sachs was one of the major contributors to the Romney Campaign. This is just one reason why many people felt used and abused by this strategy. We Are Change previously made a video with Rand where he spoke out against bank and it’s unfair influence over politics. Naturally, after hearing this news, they shot another video confronting him about his endorsement of Romney – this time, Rand ignored him. Abby Martin of RT, who accompanied Luke on this venture, later reported how she was harassed and threatened by capital police for her part in that video. Political strategy or not, it’s not okay to go after a free press for asking real questions.
Alex Jones, one of Ron Paul’s longest supporters, was also very angry about this sudden move by Rand and put out a video at the time called, “Paul Family Open Message from Alex Jones.” In that video he mentions the possibility of a political strategy being the reason for this change, but goes on to explain why he doesn’t believe that will work. Later on, Rand Paul spoke with Ben Swann while he was still on Fox, about “Why He Endorsed Romney for President“.
We Are Change’s Luke Rudkowski recently came out with video, “Why You Should NOT Vote for Rand Paul in 2016” where he talks about his past experiences with Rand. Another former supporter of Rand Paul is Adam Kokesh. He also put out a video called “Dear Rand Paul” where he brings up a lot of these same issues and a few of his own concerning the 2012 campaign. Contrary to videos put out by Luke Rudkowski and Adam Kokesh this year, Alex Jones has put out tons of videos tons of videos supporting Rand’s 2016 run for president. Very interesting.
Final ThoughtsMy first instinct is to say “principles over political strategy” and just go with that. Then again, this election is different than the last because it’s Rand as president rather than some cabinet or VP position. How will that effect things? All of the candidates say the right things, but Rand has great rhetoric and a descent voting record. Of those candidates that are in the spotlight, Rand Paul is by far my favorite choice for 2016 for many reasons, but will he stay true to his words? So often we see candidates get elected on rhetoric and then they come in and do the exact opposite of what they said they were going to do. One question I like to ask those who oppose him – If not Rand then who?
As I said in the beginning and throughout this post, I don’t believe in “the lesser of two evils” and I do think that principles are more important than strategy, but even more important is what you actually do. To those who say Rand Paul is just saying what he has to in order to be elected, I don’t like that excuse because it’s disingenuous. Luke makes a good point about “playing the game” of politics. You become the game you’re playing. In his campaign so far, Rand hasn’t really said anything I disagree with, but again, what will he actually do? I don’t have a problem with his voting record as much as I have a problem with his potential to betray the liberty movement in the name of some backroom deal again. No matter what’s offered to him or what he’s threatened with, he should stay true to those who have supported him for so long. If he can do that throughout this campaign, he’ll have my vote. If not, he won’t.