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Ellison's Must Read of the Day

Ellison must read
September 29, 2014

My must read of the day is "The Revenge of Rand Paul," in the New Yorker:

In some respects, Paul is to Republicans in 2014 what Barack Obama was to Democrats in 2006: the Party’s most prized fund-raiser and its most discussed senator, willing to express opinions unpopular within his party, and capable of energizing younger voters. […]

Yet, also like Obama at a similar stage in his career, Paul could be hobbled by past associations and statements, especially on race and foreign policy. He has questioned government attempts, including a core provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to address discrimination in the private sector. He has proposed dramatically slashing the Pentagon’s budget and cancelling all foreign aid. Ron Paul ran for President as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1988 and as an isolationist Republican in the presidential primaries of 2008 and 2012. Rand has followed his lead in opposing most U.S. military interventions of the past few decades, aside from the war in Afghanistan.

Many members of the Republican establishment see him as a dorm-room ideologue whose politics are indistinguishable from his father’s. Earlier this year, Mark Salter, who helped run John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign, wrote that Rand’s "foreign policy views, steeped as they are in the crackpot theories that inform his father’s worldview, are so ill-conceived that were he to win the nomination, Republican voters seriously concerned with national security would have no responsible recourse other than to vote for Hillary Clinton." Paul told me that he wasn’t concerned by such attacks. "Most of the criticism has come from people who would have us involved in fifteen wars right now," he said. "The American people don’t want that. They’re closer to where I am."

One thing is indisputable: Paul is a force to be reckoned with in the Republican Party. The tide of public opinion seems to be shifting, at least partially, away from what Paul calls his "minimalist" foreign policy views—but public memory is often short sighted and countless polls have shown Paul as a well-liked politician and a formidable presidential contender.

These days, however, there is little credence in the notion that Paul’s politics are indistinguishable from his father’s, namely when it comes to foreign policy. Whether you love or hate Ron Paul, he’s pretty consistent in his beliefs. Right now, Rand Paul is not.

Earlier this month when he was discussing what he would do about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) and whether the group posed a threat to U.S. national security, Paul gave contradictory answers within 24 hours.

One moment he was unsure of the threat ISIS posed, the next he was telling the Associated Press that they were definitely a threat. Reason magazine called the incident a "sudden conversion" and the justifications he gave to articulate why the group constituted a national security threat "weak," ultimately making it "hard to take Paul seriously on the subject."

That’s an incredibly problematic inconsistency, as I wrote at the time, particularly for someone who so often talks about foreign policy.

The question that matters most to me is was he inconsistent; because he’s a "political neophyte," as the New Yorker notes, who has recently begun to realize his foreign policy views are flawed or because he lacks the same conviction as his father and bends to public opinion when it’s politically expedient?

No one can know the answer to that at the moment, but it’s important to try to figure it out if Paul runs for higher office.