Rand Paul: Trump is a "Chameleon"

[garyallen59]

That won't help his sagging poll numbers. Only Rand can do that.

That is not true. Rand has the message. If you support Rand spread the message. If not please stop clogging up the forums with Trump junk. Don't be a fairweather supporter. Fight.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Came into this thread for a Trump/Boy George photoshop. Iz disappoint.

I can't do the photoshop, but I'll do the next best thing. Can't have you leaving disappointed:

 

[Sola_Fide]

Rand, why did you give him the opportunity to play the chameleon? Eh? Sounds like crying over spilled milk. You left a void that the Donald filled.

Dude, YOU should have recognized this about Trump before all the threads you started about him.

 

[kbs021]

Trump it was fun... But you are an empty suit without ideas. Your positions on healthcare and the NSA suck! Your past positions are just as bad as Hillary and to trust a man with your record is stupid. I don't give a damn about your rhetoric, you can't stand to rand's record

 

[Krugminator2]

Ben Carson will be offering brain inspections to all Trump supporters from now until the next debate. Some of these people obviously have brain damage and some should forced to get lobotomies.

 

[acptulsa]

Ben Carson will be offering brain inspections to all Trump supporters from now until the next debate.

Ben Carson had better get a more powerful microscope.

 

[wizardwatson]

Any candidate that attacks Trump doesn't get it. Trump's rise to the top of the polls is not about Trump, it is about Rand, the other GOP Candidates, and the GOP Leadership. Instead of nit picking Trump's policy flip flops (newsflash- his supporters don't care) Rand should be focusing on figuring out what it is about his campaign that has transformed him from one of the most popular Republicans in the country and GOP front runner in to single digit status in the polls. If Rand does that, maybe he has a chance. But lashing out at Trump is counterproductive and does nothing to address the real problem.

Please, what is the "real" problem? I'm really curious.

Rand isn't hardcore enough "on message" as AuH20 says. If he's too much on message everyone complains that he won't get elected.

There is no "have our cake and eat it too" where we get to be 100% on message and expertly "play the game" of politics.

If we take the Ron Paul strategy, we're a joke and irrelevant idealists. If we take the Rand Paul strategy, we're cuckservatives who've abandoned principle.

But somehow I'm supposed to believe that Donald Trump is the Kung Fu middle path. Please.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Question for AuH20:

What do you think Donald Trump can do to fix the mess we're in? What's his plan?

 

[MarcusI]

Just a fact check:

Rand dropped in the polls, sharply, a significant time before Trump announced. I'm not sure you consistently paid attention to the polls. Maybe only positive polls were posted here.

Well, here is the look on the RCP average, starting July 2013 (maximum time span to which you can extend the graphical overview):

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep..._republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html

1) Rand was never the undisputed frontrunner in this time as Cajuncocoa implied. In Oct 2013, and from May to August 2014 he was leading the RCP average, but only by margins - maximum difference to the 2nd place was exactly 1.0 %.
2) He polled between 12% and 17% from July 2013 to July 2014
Between 8% and 12% from August 2014 to early July 2015
Since early July - thats exactly when T-Rumps polling numbers started to explode - Rand went down to below 5%. So there is a good chance that some 3-4% "non-informed" anti-establishment voters went from Rand to Trump.

IMO Rand should be in the ~10% region before the Iowa caucusses in order to be seen as a serious candidate.

I'm very hopeful that the outcomings of the first debate provide a good chance to start to climb up back to the Top 3, 4 poll leaders.

 

[AuH20]

Question for AuH20:

What do you think Donald Trump can do to fix the mess we're in? What's his plan?

There isn't a person alive that can fix the mess we're in. The vines are too thick. The roots are too deeply entrenched. This game of politics is about building a like-minded consensus post-collapse. Most of the people aren't savable or refuse to save themselves. Trump is reaching out to those that smell the smoke. For that I thank him, regardless of his inner motivations.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/21/ame...e_a_testy_exchange_about_state_of_the_nation/

“America is a hellhole, and we’re going down fast”

 

[libertyplz]

Came into this thread for a Trump/Boy George photoshop. Iz disappoint.

Your wish is my command

 

[brandon]

Really solid speech.... but that isn't Benton in the background is it?

 

[Liberty74]

Heh. That was said 3 weeks ago and the train keeps slogging up the hill.

Candidates don't rise and fall in a few weeks total. It takes time to rise...then the pile on...then time to fall. I say by the end of September for sure. Trump has nothing going for him except being a bully. People like that for now but the empty mouth will get OLD once people are tuning in. That tuning in started Thursday night.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

There isn't a person alive that can fix the mess we're in. The vines are too thick. The roots are too deeply entrenched. This game of politics is about building a like-minded consensus post-collapse. Most of the people aren't savable or refuse to save themselves. Trump is reaching out to those that smell the smoke. For that I thank him, regardless of his inner motivations.

And Trump's helping to accomplish that how?

He's not promoting libertarian ideas; on the contrary, his campaign (to the extent it's about issues at all), is promoting anti-libertarian ideas (protectionism).

Simultaneously, he distracts from candidates who actually do promote libertarian ideas (Rand).

 

[acptulsa]

There isn't a person alive that can fix the mess we're in. The vines are too thick. The roots are too deeply entrenched. This game of politics is about building a like-minded consensus post-collapse. Most of the people aren't savable or refuse to save themselves. Trump is reaching out to those that smell the smoke. For that I thank him, regardless of his inner motivations.

God damn. You're down here every single ever-lovin' day because you figure this bombastic asshole is just the Nero to fiddle while Rome burns? This is your idea of a grand and noble cause?

Dude. A good steam locomotive designer can arrange it so steam is trying to push the piston back even before it stops moving. They design it to cushion the blow at bottom dead center so it suffers less wear and rebounds faster. You have surrounded yourself with people smart enough to pull stuff like that off, to actually begin moving the nation in the right direction before the crash so it will be shorter and less painful a recovery, and all of them know who to stick in the White House to help facilitate the reconstruction. And instead of listening to them, you stick your head in your ass and blather all day every day about which Nero you want to see fiddling while Rome burns.

We don't care which God damned Nero you want to see fiddling while Rome burns. Not one bit. Which part of that are you pretending not to understand?

 

[r3volution 3.0]

God damn. You're down here every single ever-lovin' day because you figure this bombastic asshole is just the Nero to fiddle while Rome burns? This is your idea of a grand and noble cause?

 

[RonPaulMall]

Please, what is the "real" problem? I'm really curious.

Rand isn't hardcore enough "on message" as AuH20 says. If he's too much on message everyone complains that he won't get elected.

There is no "have our cake and eat it too" where we get to be 100% on message and expertly "play the game" of politics.

If we take the Ron Paul strategy, we're a joke and irrelevant idealists. If we take the Rand Paul strategy, we're cuckservatives who've abandoned principle.

But somehow I'm supposed to believe that Donald Trump is the Kung Fu middle path. Please.

Rand Paul promised to be the "electable" version of Ron Paul. The deal was, in exchange for him softening some of Ron's Libertarian positions, we'd get a guy who is actually electable. Rand successfully employed that strategy in 2010 and kept it up for most of his Senate term. But now all the sudden we are getting this "Different Republican" Rand that is neither electable nor Libertarian. This isn't about wanting our cake and eating it too. Rand isn't even letting us look at the cake!

Either run as the kick ass, electable Republican that took the entire GOP by storm in 2010 or concede the nomination from the start and run an educational campaign like Ron Paul instead. I see the virtue in both and don't really care which one he chooses. But this non-electable, non-educational bullshit? He's just wasting everyone's time.

Trump is a protest vote. You can't attack a protest vote. Instead, what you need to do is correct the problems that are causing people to protest.

 

[wizardwatson]

Rand Paul promised to be the "electable" version of Ron Paul. The deal was, in exchange for him softening some of Ron's Libertarian positions, we'd get a guy who is actually electable. Rand successfully employed that strategy in 2010 and kept it up for most of his Senate term. But now all the sudden we are getting this "Different Republican" Rand that is neither electable nor Libertarian. This isn't about wanting our cake and eating it too. Rand isn't even letting us look at the cake!

Either run as the kick ass, electable Republican that took the entire GOP by storm in 2010 or concede the nomination from the start and run an educational campaign like Ron Paul instead. I see the virtue in both and don't really care which one he chooses. But this non-electable, non-educational bullshit? He's just wasting everyone's time.

Trump is a protest vote. You can't attack a protest vote. Instead, what you need to do is correct the problems that are causing people to protest.

Well, I'm upset with Rand too. That doesn't mean I'm going to add to the confusion that I believe he is adding to the propagation of the liberty message by supporting, even in protest, someone like Trump.

If the politics are making things too blurry, you get back on message. You don't throw your hands up and start supporting fascists.

The demographics of the Trump supporters are not centered in the liberty message, so it does Rand no good to bend his will to the assuage their displeasure.

 

[RonPaulMall]

The demographics of the Trump supporters are not centered in the liberty message, so it does Rand no good to bend his will to the assuage their displeasure.

You think he has a better shot at the Jeb voters, lol? If Rand has no intention of going after the Trump voters then he should shift to educational mode now and spend the next debate bashing the Israeli Lobby and the Fed. The people feeding the Trump surge are the same exact people Rand leaned on to carry him to victory against Greyson in 2010. Rand's only problem is that he's forgotten how to talk to them.

 

[Brett85]

Why did Donald Trump have to be the guy to bring front and the center the rampant problem of illegal immigration and unfair trade deals? Wasn't that supposed to be YOUR job as the representative for the disenfranchised?

Because Rand supports liberty and doesn't take statist positions on those issues.