As Bush and Romney Battle, Can Rand Paul Sneak Through In New Hampshire?

[NACBA]

CONCORD, N.H. – Rand Paul was winding down his day, talking to his fourth overflow crowd in eight hours. He’d started with state legislators who (mostly) had supported his father’s second presidential bid, in 2012. After a chat with the mayor of Manchester, he was off to talk with gun owners. He spun right around to talk to teachers about the threat of Common Core, and then he went up the highway to The Draft, a sports bar owned by the friendly State Senator Andy Sanborn, to address an assemblage of small businessmen.

At the bar, for the third time that day—totally unbidden—a potential voter asked him about militarization.

“I wanted to know if you thought the corporations that are selling weapons to the government are part of the problem,” asked Arnie Alpert, a Quaker activist wearing an NAACP badge on his tweed lapel.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/f...-can-rand-paul-sneak-through-in-new-hampshire

 

[Keith and stuff]

A couple quotes:

The schism between Jeb and Mitt created an opening—and no one is in a better position to benefit than Paul, who says he’ll decide on a bid by March or April. New Hampshire has always been a key state for a Paul campaign. For most of the past decade, the state has attracted new libertarian-minded immigrants from other states, and elected new libertarian-minded legislators. They’re often the same people. The Free State Project, an effort to attract a critical mass of libertarians to one state and steer its life and politics, was organizing in New Hampshire long before Ron Paul ran for president. When Paul ran in 2008 and 2012, he grew a passionate base of volunteers.

“They were pretty symbiotic,” says Jason Sorens, the young Yale academic (now a professor at Dartmouth, fittingly) who dreamed up the Free State concept in 2001. “The Free Staters went from 500 to 1200 in the space of a couple of years, and there was a big boost to us from the Ron Paul movement.”

How big a boost? “I’ve tried to investigate this, actually,” says Sorens. “I looked at the correlation between Free Staters and the 2008 primary vote for Paul. For every one of them in a given town, there were two additional votes for him.”

Not everyone who supported Ron Paul is supporting Rand Paul. In early polls, Paul pulls around 12 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote—a little more than half the total vote for his father. The senator said several times this week that he would not bring his father, who turns 80 this year, onto the campaign trail. It’s also easy to find Free Staters who identify as minarchists, or voluntaryists, and argue that something’s been lost in the Paul DNA. In Keene, a west New Hampshire college town where libertarians have gotten in trouble for filling strangers’ parking meters and videotaping police activity, it’s easy to find people who believe that the son has strayed quite far from the true faith.

“He doesn’t lecture to us,” says Dan Garthwaite, a Free Stater who ran for state legislature in 2014 and lost by only 51 votes. “He asks us, ‘Who do I need to talk to?’ He’s paying close attention. He’s really listening to people.”

The message that’s resulted from that is a hybrid of Paul’s own principles and a close local touch. It’s evident at every stop. On Wednesday, at almost 8 a.m. exactly, Paul arrived for a public meeting of 20 state legislators who were inclined to support him. When State Senator Kevin Avard asked Paul about a local fracking fight, Paul was ready with an answer about the threat of eminent domain.

“Remember y’all’s Supreme Court Justice David Souter?” asked Paul. “We sent him back to you.” Paul made the case for energy markets while reminding libertarians that the high court judge who wrote the infamous Kelo v. New London decision legitimizing eminent domain had been appointed by George H.W. Bush.

And the questions got friendlier from there. “When I was younger, I was quite a hawk,” said Larry Gagne, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran and member of New Hampshire’s elected general court. “Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I’m sick of being the world’s policeman.”

Paul nodded. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “We’re in NATO. We’re supposed to stand with each other. Why isn’t Turkey stepping up to support us now that ISIS is attacking? If Turkey were to put 100,000 troops on that border, what do you think ISIS would do? They would run.”

 

[economics102]

I'm now envisioning a scenario in which rand wins new Hampshire but the media manages to make the story about how Jeb and Mitt are getting in each others' way rather than the fact that rand won

 

[Galileo Galilei]

Jeb sucks in NH. In fact, all the top contenders except Romney suck in NH.

 

[philipped]

I'm now envisioning a scenario in which rand wins new Hampshire but the media manages to make the story about how Jeb and Mitt are getting in each others' way rather than the fact that rand won

But if Rand won...1st place...In a crowded race...He's not out because NV and AZ and SC are still out there and up for grabs. no?

 

[Galileo Galilei]

Dave Weigel's sutble negative swipes attacks at Rand remind be of a mole or some kind of libertarian agent. That is someone educated in the libertarian movement and smart enough to know how to undermine it.

 

[JJ2]

Dave Weigel's sutble negative swipes attacks at Rand remind be of a mole or some kind of libertarian agent. That is someone educated in the libertarian movement and smart enough to know how to undermine it.

That's because he's been "stalking" the Pauls on the campaign trail for years. Lol.