Rand Paul to GOP: Our voter ID push is “offending people”

[carlton]

And McCain and Romney lost because the Free Republic type people didn't show up to vote for them in the general election.

McCain and Romney lost because Obama ran against them. McCain and Romney's centrist voting draw went to Obama because he is a cult of personality unlike one seen in my lifetime. The good news. Hillary isn't. I don't see any problems with Rand's strategy to appealing to centrists and independents, but the thing is he's got to make it through the primary (hence his overt reaching-out to the establishment).

 

[jjdoyle]

McCain and Romney lost because Obama ran against them. McCain and Romney's centrist voting draw went to Obama because he is a cult of personality unlike one seen in my lifetime. The good news. Hillary isn't. I don't see any problems with Rand's strategy to appealing to centrists and independents, but the thing is he's got to make it through the primary (hence his overt reaching-out to the establishment).

Well, with Barack, the Democrat Party gave Americans the first "black" President.
With Hillary, they will be giving America the first "woman" President.

And for some, they will simply vote for Hillary, because they like Bill. They see it as a third term for Bill. He is her personality.

 

[William Tell]

Rand is beating off his conservative base with a big stick. Whoever is inviting him to take this strategy is a total idiot and will cost him the nomination.

I agree.

 

[Brett85]

No, they lost because no one was going to vote Republican in 2008 after eight years of Bush (McCain) and because of dumb comments about self-deporting Hispanics and 47% of Americans are lazy bums (Romney).

The percentage of the Hispanic population that votes Republican is declining fast. 44% voted Bush in 2004; 37% for McCain in 2008 and 27% for Romney in 2012. You're not going to win pushing the "landmines on the border, deport all illegals" candidate that Free Republic wants. They're a site populated by a dying, rapidly-dwindling-in-national-elections-relevance crowd of old, white neoconservative farts.

You might be right, but still, the polls show that the vast majority of voters support voter ID laws, even Democrats. So I certainly don't see the logic of opposing them.

 

[Antischism]

Good, and he should come out against it completely. The only reason people push for these laws is to prevent specific groups from voting because it favors their party. It's a really transparent tactic.

 

[Brett85]

Good, and he should come out against it completely. The only reason people push for these laws is to prevent specific groups from voting because it favors their party. It's a really transparent tactic.

BS. Part of the law is that they'll actually come to the house of anyone who doesn't have a voter ID and actually give them an ID.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Good, and he should come out against it completely. The only reason people push for these laws is to prevent specific groups from voting because it favors their party. It's a really transparent tactic.

Yep. Well...that and a National ID System. Again...papers please.

 

[Cleaner44]

Rand is beating off his conservative base with a big stick. Whoever is inviting him to take this strategy is a total idiot and will cost him the nomination.

The nomination is very far away and he has no real competition.

We have no idea what he actually said and what his strategy is, all we have is an article from a liberal media source printing whatever they want to for whatever reasons they want to.

 

[DeMintConservative]

Smart.

Being opposed by those two site's members seems to almost be a good thing. Makes me worry Jeb Bush will win the nomination in 2016.

So true. Whoever is supported by the majority (or perhaps the very vocal minority) of HotAir commentators is probably DOA in a national primary.

 

[fr33]

It's annoying. I have to show 2 ID's to vote now.

My voter card that I got from having a license and my license. It's retarded to think this solves any problem.

Why not force me to have 5 or 6 ID's? How 'Murican are you?

 

[Brett85]

Smart.

Why do you say that?

 

[DeMintConservative]

Why do you say that?

Because it's, and I'll put this crudely, properly executed doublespeak and I think conservatives/libertarians need more politicians capable of doing this (not that all politicians need to engage in this, there's a place for those who primarily fight for the popularization of ideas and are uncompromising in their rhetoric, for example).

He comes across as empathetic and reasonable - and, as the article notes, without changing his view on policy. That's good politics. It becomes counterproductive when it makes one permeable to accusations of phoniness or flip-flopping - think Romney. That isn't the case here.

I'm a big fan of making the message more palatable and far-reaching without diluting the guiding policy principles and I think Rand Paul is becoming quite good at it.

ETA two additional points:

- with regards to this particular situation and his outreach to the black community, it's also smart because it makes so much harder for accusations of racism to stick
- all of the stuff he's been saying on abortion, immigration, voting ID laws, are mostly rhetoric artefacts but as they impact how people perceive him personally, bring in more to the middle of the GOP presidential nomination field, which is where the nomination is won. The only people he can lose over this are those who care a lot about fighting rhetoric and grandstanding, the HotAir peanuts gallery - as others said, having their support is the kiss of death because if one is enough of a blowhard to have their support, one isn't winning the presidential nomination. Four years ago, their support wavered between Cain, Perry and Bachmann.

 

[Rocco]

The fact is that we need to make a real effort to reach out to minority groups or demographics will catch up to the GOP. We can either do this by advocating for more government, or less government. By advocating for restoration of felon voting rights, ending mandatory minimums, easing up on the voter ID rhetoric and allowing states to decide drug policy Rand Paul is advocating for less government in ways that will produce real outreach opportunities to the black community.

 

[pulp8721]

The senator has had his own struggles with civil rights issues, hedging at times on his support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And, notably, he did not on Friday denounce voter ID laws as bad policy or take back previous statements in which he had said it was not unreasonable for voters to be required to show identification at the polls.

Instead, his comments were more an acknowledgment that Republicans had been somewhat tone deaf on the issue.

news-journal.c om/news/nation/paul-focus-on-voter-id-laws-hurts-gop/article_32a0640c-b2f0-5126-8b9e-abf3f6e6acf4.html

 

[Boshembechle]

Rand Paul is either a genius politician or a politician willing to give the middle finger to his party. The latter is what I like about him, assuming the former is not true.

 

[RonPaulMall]

Because it's, and I'll put this crudely, properly executed doublespeak and I think conservatives/libertarians need more politicians capable of doing this (not that all politicians need to engage in this, there's a place for those who primarily fight for the popularization of ideas and are uncompromising in their rhetoric, for example).

He comes across as empathetic and reasonable - and, as the article notes, without changing his view on policy. That's good politics. It becomes counterproductive when it makes one permeable to accusations of phoniness or flip-flopping - think Romney. That isn't the case here.

I'm a big fan of making the message more palatable and far-reaching without diluting the guiding policy principles and I think Rand Paul is becoming quite good at it.

ETA two additional points:

- with regards to this particular situation and his outreach to the black community, it's also smart because it makes so much harder for accusations of racism to stick
- all of the stuff he's been saying on abortion, immigration, voting ID laws, are mostly rhetoric artefacts but as they impact how people perceive him personally, bring in more to the middle of the GOP presidential nomination field, which is where the nomination is won. The only people he can lose over this are those who care a lot about fighting rhetoric and grandstanding, the HotAir peanuts gallery - as others said, having their support is the kiss of death because if one is enough of a blowhard to have their support, one isn't winning the presidential nomination. Four years ago, their support wavered between Cain, Perry and Bachmann.

Sorry, but I can't disagree with you more. There are certain issues where it makes sense to vocally come out "against type". Marijuana Laws and NSA spying are two great examples. It confounds the MSM stereotype of Republicans, doesn't alienate the base, and best of all is the right side of the issue both politically and in terms of popularity among the general electorate. But this is just stupid. Voter ID is not a "real" issue. It is a fabrication of the media invented solely to paint Republicans as "racist". Nobody in the real world opposes voter ID laws. Not even the media or Dems really oppose them. They are all for the laws that require you to have an ID to open a bank account. So if you take what the media and Dems are selling at face value what they are saying is they want blacks to be able to vote but they don't want blacks to be allowed to bank. Does that make any sense to you? This is pure media nonsense, and the bad thing is the entire Conservative base knows it. My parents (both of whom are just regular mainstream Republicans) bitched to me on the phone about this after they voted in the NC primaries. Apparently the poll workers were trying make a huge deal about telling people they needed to bring their IDs in 2016 like it was the end of the world or something. My parents, who are barely political at all, rightly interpreted it as a Democratic smear. And if my parents think that way, I don't even want to know what the Republican base is thinking. This is a horrible, horrible, horrible, thing for Rand to be spouting off about. He's been on real tear of awfulness lately. I think he has to take a break or something, clear his head, and maybe replace some of his staff because if he keeps this crap up he's going to flame out before the primary season even gets underway.

 

[compromise]

Rand Paul will have no problem with the Freepers in the general. They mostly come around at election time. Heck, even the Stormfronters voted 50% for Romney. There is really very little evidence at all that any electorally significant segment of the fringe right breaks off and loses Republicans' elections.

Assuming he got the same percentages of votes among all demographics as in 1980, Ronald Reagan would lose a presidential election today due to the changes in demographics. And that's not even bearing in mind that some demographics have become significantly more Democratic since 1980.

It's not just the primary winners that are moderates. Candidates #2 and #3 have both in the past been significantly more moderate than Rand - see Santorum, Gingrich, Huckabee and Thompson. The real hard-right Free Republic-approved candidates like Tancredo, Keyes, Hunter, Cain and Bachmann got absolutely nowhere in the primaries.

Rand is polling well in the primaries at the moment, taking a good mix of moderate and conservative voters. He has a very good chance of getting through this. If nominated, he will be one of the most conservative GOP nominees ever. He then needs to win a general election against a candidate widely perceived as a moderate in the Democratic Party. There is no way he can do this without getting more votes from blacks, Hispanics, Asians and young people. So really, I have no idea what most of you guys are talking about.

 

[jtstellar]

slow news day?

 

[RonPaulMall]

It's not just the primary winners that are moderates. Candidates #2 and #3 have both in the past been significantly more moderate than Rand - see Santorum, Gingrich, Huckabee and Thompson. The real hard-right Free Republic-approved candidates like Tancredo, Keyes, Hunter, Cain and Bachmann got absolutely nowhere in the primaries.

Rand is polling well in the primaries at the moment, taking a good mix of moderate and conservative voters. He has a very good chance of getting through this. If nominated, he will be one of the most conservative GOP nominees ever. He then needs to win a general election against a candidate widely perceived as a moderate in the Democratic Party. There is no way he can do this without getting more votes from blacks, Hispanics, Asians and young people. So really, I have no idea what most of you guys are talking about.

And how does sucking up to the NY Times help Rand with any Republican subgroup? This is just bad politics. All Republicans, liberals, moderate, and conservative, support voter id laws. All Republicans get pissed off when rags like the NY Times suggest they are "racist" because of it. This is a losing issue, and it was idiotic to bring it up considering how irrelevant it is. What happened to the Rand Paul that associates himself with huge, popular positions like NSA spying. Not only is he pissing the entire electorate off, he's doing it over crap that doesn't even matter. Voter ID? Are you kidding me?

 

[jct74]

here's the New York Times article for the full context of Rand's remarks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/u...push-on-voting-laws-is-alienating-blacks.html