Rand Paul Calls for New Populist Libertarianism

[DonViejo]

By Toby Harnden - February 18, 2013

Republicans will need to embrace anti-Wall Street populism, champion immigration and promote lighter sentences for drug crimes, according to Senator Rand Paul, a leading Tea Party figure who is likely to run for US president in 2016.

was elected in 2010 in a Republican wave that saw candidates backed by the low-tax, small-government, Tea Party swept into office. He is proposing a radical reshaping of the Republicans following last year’s stinging election defeat.

Much of the party establishment is proposing compromise with President Barack Obama and a dilution of conservative purity. But Paul — the son of Ron Paul, the maverick former Texas congressman and presidential candidate — is advocating a new political coalition and unyielding opposition to the White House’s expansion of executive power.

With his father now 77 and out of Congress, the libertarian torch has passed to the Kentucky senator, who makes no secret of his interest in running for the Republican nomination in 2016. Asked in an interview with The Sunday Times whether he would run for president, Paul, 50, said: “It’s too early to tell but I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of the national debate and I will continue to be.

“The Republican party needs a good healthy dose of libertarianism and we also need to figure out something new, because what’s going on is not working.”

-snip-

read more:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/18/rand_paul_calls_for_new_populist_libertarianism_117057.html?utm_source=rcpwidget&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=nyo-ja

[TwilightGardener]

1. Can't be libertarian and anti-choice. So I expect Mr. Paul to announce his support

for legal abortion very soon.

[TheOther95Percent]

2. Paul's candidacy would bring in more libertarian primary voters.

I'm not sure there's enough voters like that to get the nomination.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. So he thinks 2010 is the model for Republican victory.

A year when the youth (under 45) stayed home and a nervous older electorate frightened of the black dude in the White House, and terrified that everything they earned was being shit away by a shitty economy and only the safe and known leadership could save them.

Rand Paul could not find a clue with both hands if they taped it to his ass.

[midwest irish]

4. Average libertarian

Is either a tin-foil hat gun hoarder who thinks chem-trails are a real conspiracy....or they are upper-middle class kids who just want to smoke tons of weed but dont want to get busted for it.

[onehandle]

5. Libertarians are largely self-centered, fringe flavored right-wingers...

...rocking back and forth in their basements, clinging to their guns.

Hardly capable of populism.

[msongs]

6. another repub out to steal issues that should be owned by dems but are not....

These are things dems used to stand for til the party was hijacked by the center right conservatives: "...embrace anti-Wall Street populism, champion immigration and promote lighter sentences for drug crimes..." Dems can return the favor and steal these things back

and go further when it comes to the "drug crimes" part by legalizing pot and treating hard drug use as something other than a criminal weakness

[Jamaal510]

9. +1

I really don't get what's stopping the Democratic Party from jumping on this issue. For starters, it would be a politically-wise move for them, as the majority of the populace supports either legalization or decriminalization of 420. With them adopting this into their platform, they can really nail down young voters and possibly Libertarians who would otherwise vote Democratic. Not only that, but Canada has it legal there, and they don't seem to have any problems.

[daybranch]

12. since when are democrats or republicans representative of the public

It is the Gerrymandering, the number of safe districts, unequal representation, big money on campaigns supported by Supreme Court decisions, the movement into cushy lobbyist jobs by former Congressmen and women, lack of transparency, no recall rights, and more. Obviously you have a different view of politics than I do, but we need your help to fight these mechanisms that keep your good and wonderful view from being implemented. Fight Gerrymandering now and work for Fair Voting with maximum inclusion of the voters views. We need good people like you to say, lets change the process so we do not have to struggle with issues people agree on.

[geek tragedy]

7. Libertarians don't want to make a woman's uterus state property. nt

[Ikonoklast]

8. Ayn Rand loathed Libertarians.

She despised them almost as virulently as she despised Socialists.

[LiberalFighter]

10. He wouldn't survive a presidential campaign. It would be too brutal and tiring.

He would likely need to increase his testosterone level.

[DonCoquixote]

11. an eternal classic

http://leftycartoons.com/the-24-types-of-libertarian/

[quaker bill]

13. The biggest problem

All these guys on the right will have is that the economy will recover over the next 4 years. The people will have elected someone the RWNJs call a "liberal", "socialist"... you name it, and it will have worked. Instead of the collapse of the currency and failure of all western civilization, people will have jobs and paychecks. All these changes, cosmetic to radical on the republican side simply will not matter. It will take a decade or two of being something really different before they come to power again.

Their wave crested and washed GWB up on the beach, after a bit he rather stunk the place up. The republican party was mortally wounded by finding no WMD, and burried by weeks of Katrina video, the economic collapse sealed the crypt and put daises out in front of it. No Black Man, I do not care how good, would have beaten Nixon's - Reagan's republican party. Barack Obama beat GWB's republican party pretty easy, twice.

Yes, they were very smart and ran a campaign that will be written about for years. However, it really was the soup to nuts failure of GWB that changed politics in a way that made it possible. GWB changed the country, by teaching a large mass of voters to reject him and things that sound like him.

Rand Paul thinks he is less hosed by this and he is welcome to his delusions.