Planning for Rand Paul 2020

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

Kokesh is out. There are a million reasons why he will never fly even if he is the liberty messiah that we have all been praying for.

At this point, Rand is the logical choice. He kept his powder dry by gracefully exiting before becoming a punchline. Both Santorum and Huckabee as well as all the other flavors of the month we have seen the last two election cycles show that after a candidate has surged and peaked, he's done. Used up. Romney understood this and stepped aside in 2008 and went on to become the nominee in 2012. The media BS kind of had the unintended consequence of not using Rand up since less informed voters haven't heard/heard of him yet, and Rand was still many people's second or third choice.

So. . .

If Rand has decided not to run again and we want him to, we basically will have to draft him. We need to respect the hard work and emotional toll a campaign can take on a human being, and the grassroots will need to organize and energize beyond what we saw for Ron in 2008 and even 2012--and not just in 2019. The effort will need to start much sooner.

I propose that--if Rand 2020 is the goal--we continue fundraising. Quietly and steadily. Contribute $5 a month to his committee as long as they accept donations. Get more people to do the same. Show that committed support is growing. If Rand is not the one moving forward for 2020, he will then have the say in where the money goes. That would avoid all the butthurt, waste and confusion that C4L caused.

Getting beat down, betrayed and abandoned can make a candidate feel pretty uncertain about running for anything. Solid, deep support can help him overcome that.

 

[fcreature]

Adam Kokesh? Hell no.

 

[trey4sports]

The underlying problem is that liberty just isn't popular. People don't want the truth, they want to have their fears stoked by Fox News.

True.

I think our best bet is going to be running someone without the last name paul. Maybe Massie or Amash.

 

[trey4sports]

Adam Kokesh? Hell no.

About as fringe as it gets.

 

[TheNewYorker]

True.

I think our best bet is going to be running someone without the last name paul. Maybe Massie or Amash.

I like massie as a congressman, but he's too nerdy looking to win votes to be commander in chief.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Kokesh is out. There are a million reasons why he will never fly even if he is the liberty messiah that we have all been praying for.

At this point, Rand is the logical choice. He kept his powder dry by gracefully exiting before becoming a punchline. Both Santorum and Huckabee as well as all the other flavors of the month we have seen the last two election cycles show that after a candidate has surged and peaked, he's done. Used up. Romney understood this and stepped aside in 2008 and went on to become the nominee in 2012. The media BS kind of had the unintended consequence of not using Rand up since less informed voters haven't heard/heard of him yet, and Rand was still many people's second or third choice.

Well, that's one way to spin it. The other way to put it, is Rand crashed and burned, and never demonstrated he had the ability to surge at all. So you would rather go a fourth go round with a style of national candidate that has failed three times, than try a different flavor of liberty candidate once. Yes, a Kokesh, or an Alex Jones, or a least a different 'educator' type, like Woods, or Napolitano.

In light of the actual experience of three election cycles, where we found there is a roof on the amount of appeal the Pauls could ever have, we need to consider somebody else. Somebody brassier who can energize, somebody who can attract the social right, the populists, or some major voting bloc beyond the liberty core. Otherwise, this movement really has been just a personality cult.

 

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

This cycle, in my opinion, was too soon for Rand to run for the White House. What's done is done. What is clear, is that the liberty folks are outnumbered and out financed. To have a shot in the future, we need to start fundraising now in order to build up that $100 million war chest that seems to be necessary these days. So maybe not Rand. I can live with that. But where else can we park our money so that it doesn't get squandered by opportunists and amateurs until a real candidate comes along?

 

[CPUd]

This cycle, in my opinion, was too soon for Rand to run for the White House. What's done is done. What is clear, is that the liberty folks are outnumbered and out financed. To have a shot in the future, we need to start fundraising now in order to build up that $100 million war chest that seems to be necessary these days. So maybe not Rand. I can live with that. But where else can we park our money so that it doesn't get squandered by opportunists and amateurs until a real candidate comes along?

In 4 years, it will take $1 Billion to run a primary campaign.

 

[TheTexan]

I think we should be planning for 2028/2032. By then Rand will have gotten older and will look more presidential.

 

[TheNewYorker]

I think we should be planning for 2028/2032. By then Rand will have gotten older and will look more presidential.

Maybe he will have shaved his curls too

 

[ds21089]

I think we should be planning for 2028/2032. By then Rand will have gotten older and will look more presidential.

Assuming free will exists at that time.

 

[Rede]

Rand devoted the last 4 years of his life to running for president and this has to have been a bitter disappointment. I would support him again in 2020 but wouldn't be shocked if he planned to just do his two terms in the senate and be done with it.

For all those who are complaining about his cozying up to the establishment, you seem to have a very short memory. Ron was railroaded by the mainstream and Rand sought to learn from that and try and expand Ron's base to a winning coalition. What he didn't know - and neither did any of us - is that Ron's base was really nothing more than some libertarians and essentially protest voters who didn't really believe in Ron's philosophy and only agreed with Ron's anti-war and/or anti-establishment approach. It's too bad, but in a cycle where there were lots of anti-establishment and anti-war candidates that coalition fell apart and we saw that the libertarian base is actually very small. I really thought that triangulation between the liberty movement and the establishment would work - but the second he made any effort to expand the coalition those who didn't really believe in the ideas and just wanted the guy who the establishment hated (but didnt stand a real chance) lost interest. Rand looked like someone who had a chance at winning, so was inherently less interesting to some - I think his looking like a real contender in 2014 was the beginning of the end... anyone who could be a real contender couldn't be legit. I really think Bernie took the wind out of our sails and is more the successor to Ron's "movement" than Rand was - even though he and Ron couldn't agree less on most issues... it just really isn't about the issues and never was.

I'm somewhat disheartened, because what I've taken from this is that the ideas aren't important and Liberty isn't popular. Liberty will be successful by accident - when we find a charismatic leader people like who just so happens to be a part of the liberty movement.

I'm not sure if we will find that person who can appeal to the masses unless something big changes in the country - as much as I would like it to be the case I'm not sure we have anyone on the roster who could fit that bill. Massie and Amash are great representatives of our libertarian movement but I dont think they will have the broad appeal or statewide experience by 2020. Tom Davis is popular in SC but between Scott, Graham and Haley I don't see a chance for him to run for statewide office and you don't go from being a state senator to running for president. Sanford would have been a great ambassador for liberty and was a sitting governor, but then he went for a hike in the Appalachians and I dobut that is really a possibility anymore. Vince Vaughan is a celebrity... maybe he will run? ;-)

Honestly, assuming a Republican doesn't win in 2016, Rand may be the best option we have. (Maybe Mike Lee... but he is even more "wonky" and even fewer people here would support him.) If a Republican does win, we have until 2024 to find someone... but at that point the Pauls and their movement could potentially be a distant memory, especially if there is a 2 term Republican president and Rand has gone back to his medical practice.

Maybe I'm just really disappointed about the news today and will get over it, but I haven't been less optimistic since 2007. We've always had an heir apparent and we haven't seen a Republican win since Ron ran in 2008 - so there has always been someone to watch prepare to run and there has never been an 8 year wait. I've had a lot of fun on these forums for the last 8 years following the Liberty movement... I'm really hoping that I'm wrong about all or most of the above. Perhaps Rand was just unlucky and in the right circumstances can speak to the masses.




Edit: I like Matt Kibbe's more optimistic take, with a lot of the same assumptions above. Matt seems to think people can be taught to be more than just angry and care about ideas... I hope he is right. Maybe these student groups Ron and Rand started will help grow a movement based on ideas as they come of age. I really do sincerely hope so, even if I'm less optimistic than I have been in 8 years. http://www.mobypicture.com/user/mkibbe/view/18837975

 

[Aratus]

i feel 2o16 by its very nature had the thorny issue of running for two things
at the same time, had RAND been more successful on the national level this
would have happily fueled the attack ads of his major Democratic contender!
I now think 2o2o lets him have a more direct focus!! I respect his decision!!!

 

[FriedChicken]

Haven't read every post yet so this might have been brought up...
You know that even if trump, Cruz or Rubio wins the president they can be challenged to a primary.

Maybe that is worth considering as an option for Paul or another liberty candidate.

 

[bunklocoempire]

How about a campaign to get people off anti-depressants so they get mad and actually do something about it?

reported

 

[idiom]

I think Rand has bigger issues with foreign policy and the Fed, governor can't do that

Patience.

If he could show that he can perform economic miracles, then people will listen to his foreign policy ideas.

It would also give him sorely needed executive experience.

He can't do anything about Presidential issues if he can't win the Presidency. A governorship isn't instead of being President, its a grooming step on the path there.

 

[Vehillill]

This thread has plenty of good ideas,

But I think placing all of our eggs in one basket won't get the job done. What I've noticed is we put a lot of emphasis on one candidate to somehow win this obviously stacked game and free us from the shackles of Big Government. I'm not mocking anyone here, just making an observation with myself included.
We must focus our energy and organization into local and then state elections. These areas are much more manageable for a liberty candidate compared to a national campaign. I mean honestly, how many of you on here notice large vibrant crowds and huge media attention towards electing a City Council member? These positions are important but are a little under the radar and so it's a great opportunity I think to take over these positions which are otherwise widely ignored and build our way upwards the chain in the state. Duplicate this in other states for a number of years and you'll have a larger movement growing in the nation.

Then there is the "Liberty isn't popular" opinion. This is entirely due to Mass media consumption. What they air 24/7 is what the majority constantly takes in as fact. Liberty is popular, when it's exposed enough. I was a sheep once myself, and all it took was an open mind to change the way I think and see things once I found Ron Paul. But again, that was entirely random for me. Many others do not even know who Ron Paul is, which makes a lot of sense considering the amount of garbage people watch on a daily basis. The mainstream media is the mountain the liberty movement has to climb if the movement wants to win a presidential election. Control the airwaves and you control the narrative. Unfortunately that is a monumental task in itself so it must be done in a very unconventional way.
I highly recommend helping the spread of “Truth in Media” with Ben Swann. So that one day it may be able to broadcast over the airwaves and become even more popular. But even then, that’s a tough and long fight.

What I believe we can expect in the next 4 years is even more distrust of the government. The news overseas is becoming more and more interesting with Russia beginning to expand its influence and helping Syria eliminate ISIS. Saudi Arabia is losing money in its support for ISIS and its war with Yemen and Iran is growing in strength. Our foreign policy will prove once again it is a joke and the U.S. as a whole will lose power overseas and friends for that matter. Our petrodollar will fail unless we want to face open conflict with the Russians which is a possibility. But the Russians are proving otherwise to keep their cool and keep on task with Syria and ISIS.

So my point here is. Through both us trying to spread the message and the Libertarian base and the slow declining of U.S. power and interests overseas we could very well prevail in that kind of environment perhaps not by the next election but the one after that.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Here's a much simpler formula for national liberty victory in 2020: field a candidate who is a likely lock to win either Iowa or New Hampshire, to give our cause the early win in the primary race that has been eluding us. That can be simply done by:

Combing the ranks of Paul activists or LP/CP activists in Iowa and surrounding states (MN, WS, IL, NE, MO). Find somebody who supports our views who is also a conservative evangelical. Between the local son aspect, and the social right affinity, this will help Iowa. Hopefully get the 'winner(s)' locally elected to Congress. OR:

Combing the ranks of Paul activists or LP/CP activists in New Hampshire and surrounding states (ME, MA, VT). Find somebody who supports our views who is also a Tea Party populist. Between the local son aspect, and the anti-establishment affinity, this will help NH. Hopefully get the 'winner(s)' locally elected to Congress.

Between these two fielding efforts the movement can arrive at running 1-2 candidates in the primaries who will have a strong, not tangential, chance of winning one of the two first major contests. That would be progress, compared the track record to date of our failing to win right out of the gate.

 

[Cabal]

 

[CaptUSA]

I actually hope Rand isn't running, has no intention of running, and that once he gets his Senate seat locked up, he can say whatever the hell he feels like without concern for how it may appear politically. I also hope he sticks to his "2-Senate terms" term limit bill even though it will never pass.

He would be the freest Senator ever.