Rand Paul: Yes, I'm Still Running, So 'Get Over It'

[carlton]

byALEXANDRA JAFFEandVAUGHN HILLYARD

Travel delays, single-digit polling and repetitive, annoying questions add up.
So it's no wonder Sen. Rand Paul was a little impatient on Tuesday when answering the third most-asked question about him on Google: "Is Rand Paul still running for president?"

"I wouldn't be doing this dumb ass live-stream if I wasn't, so get over it," an annoyed Paul deadpanned in response.

What was unusual about the moment is that it was streaming live to anyone watching Paul's three-day swing through Iowa on Periscope, the app that allows anybody, anywhere to broadcast their activities live. Paul's campaign trumpeted their plans to stream his campaign stop on Periscope as historic; he's the first presidential candidate to do so. But his somewhat prickly response to a mundane, if grating, question has now gone viral.

Campaign spokesman Sergio Gor said Paul was just being "playful."

"Of course Senator Rand Paul is running. Context is important, and Senator Paul was reading mean tweets when the question came up, most media outlets realize he was being playful," he said in an email.

Indeed, Paul seemed to forget the ongoing livestream at one point, answering the next Google question -- "Where is Rand Paul in the polls?" -- with, "this isn't live -- we can edit this, right?"

The Paul campaign acknowledged the moment with a tongue-in-cheek t-short for sale in his campaign store. On Thursday, visitors to his website could, for $20,purchase a crewneck reading "I watched Rand Paul's livestream and all I got was this dumbass teeshirt."

Rand Paul is seventh in the Republican primary field with four percent of support in a CBS News poll of Republican primary voters released on Sunday.
Paul's live stream—which included jamming, or zen listening, to The White Stripesand assessing that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton "see the same hair stylist"--began after what was already a rocky start to his Iowa trip. Flight delays caused his team to land five hours late into the state.

The live stream signal also froze over the course of the journey.

Paul finishes his tour of Iowa on Wednesday afternoon.

Add to that a smattering of recent reports suggesting his Senate seat, which he's refused to resign to run for president, may be in jeopardy because of his sluggish presidential campaign, and it could be a recipe for a bad mood on a Tuesday morning.

Most people have them. Most candidates do too. But Paul was unlucky enough to broadcast his live.

No link because...F NBC.

 

[CPUd]

Pretty sure he said that on purpose.

 

[acptulsa]

Leave it to NBC to call the person who asked a 'mundane'.

Which just makes me more willing to believe that it wasn't a mundane at all, but a plant.

Can we crucify NBC for calling that person a 'mundane'?

 

[carlton]

Pretty sure he said that on purpose.

Agree. This is just NBC establisment media spin. I didn't post it under the spin sub though because I think these remarks were good responses.

 

[Jackie Moon]

Indeed, Paul seemed to forget the ongoing livestream at one point, answering the next Google question -- "Where is Rand Paul in the polls?" -- with, "this isn't live -- we can edit this, right?"

He was clearly joking when he said that.

Do they really think after being followed around by a live stream camera all day, and promoting the hell out of it, that he forgot it was live?

 

[Badger Paul]

"But his somewhat prickly response to a mundane, if grating, question has now gone viral."

Rand, if you feel this is beneath you, then get out. I'm sorry if you don't like day-to-day politics because you may well get "dumbass" questions like this from a dumbass person, but they vote like it or not. And if they think you're a jerk because they ask you questions you think you've answered a million times then nobody is going to vote for you, because nobody wants a jerk to be their President.

I can't believe Rand acted this way back in 2010 and still won, Republican wave or not (otherwise he would have lost the primary). A lot has happened to sour Rand towards politics and if he keeps this attitude up he will put his Senate seat in jeopardy. So again Rand, if you don't like it, get out.

Everyone around talks about "the game" or "the long game". Well this is a big part of it, a basic part. No one is going to care about non-interventionism unless Rand appears to care about the voters he's asking their votes from. You may think its phony, you may think its demeaning, but it's a fundamental part of "the game" i.e. the candidate's personal interaction with voters and all the phone calls in the word you're doing from home can't change people's perceptions of Rand when they meet him. He and other people around here have to understand this. As I said, if this not what you want to be doing Rand, go back to private practice because you're not helping the Revolution by setting yourself up for utter defeat just because you can't suffer fools gladly. Those kinds of people don't become politicians and it's time for you to decide if you still wish to be one.

 

[carlton]

"But his somewhat prickly response to a mundane, if grating, question has now gone viral."

Rand, if you feel this is beneath you, then get out. I'm sorry if you don't like day-to-day politics because you may well get "dumbass" questions like this from a dumbass person, but they vote like it or not. And if they think you're a jerk because they ask you questions you think you've answered a million times then nobody is going to vote for you, because nobody wants a jerk to be their President.

Explain Trump then.

 

[Badger Paul]

Trump limits his interaction with the voters so basically what you see what you get from the podium. You'll notice he's not exactly doing the church basement circuit in Iowa because he doesn't have to. People know who he is. Besides, a majority of Iowa Republicans would vote for someone else other than Trump.

 

[Crashland]

If it was intentional, that was a brilliant idea and well executed. And if it was an unintentional slip, he and the campaign handled it quite well.

 

[carlton]

If it was intentional, that was a brilliant idea and well executed. And if it was an unintentional slip, he and the campaign handled it quite well.

Wll, judging from the news headlines, Breitbart comments and comments from the Blaze it has not gone over well. Honestly, I liked Paul being a little self-deprecating regarding this livestream.. but am curious how you think what he said was brilliant or well executed.. not being critical by the way, just curious.

 

[libertyplz]

Wow are people really this dense? (not directed at anyone in this thread, at the authors of this article and others like it) Just read the article posted in the thread along with some other articles that are nearly identical, and holy smokes. Rand has a dry sense of humor and was clearly joking. The segment was of him reading mean tweets/questions and responding to them. Rand wasn't getting "prickly" nor was Rand "annoyed". Would his staff really make him read mean tweets and questions if they were going to "annoy" him?

 

[georgiaboy]

Exactly, plz.

It's exasperating.

 

[adam220891]

It was not intentional. The clip on his facebook page conveniently edits this part out.

 

[acptulsa]

Playing this up could backfire on the mainstream media. Hope they're dumb enough to ask him about it.

Meanwhile, we need to play it with the same dry humor. Well, we are in this for the long haul. And we'll keep telling the truth, whether you can handle it or not. Deal with us.

 

[Badger Paul]

Here's what the website Mashable had to say about Rand's Livestream:

"Then Paul gave a stump speech, where he banged his drum on his top issues: Spending and debt, ending NSA spying, taxes, and so on. Then he took pictures with members of the audience, got in a car that took him to another college where he gave another stump speech, took more pictures, and got in a car again.

That, sadly, is mostly what the campaign trail looks like. Stump speeches, hand shaking, and interviews in between. That's mostly what the stream consisted of when it was going. I'd hesitate to call it a livestream, really, and definitely walk it back from the way Paul's campaign initially described it. What footage we saw was live, but the stream often paused, sometimes due to technical difficulties, and more often out of choice. It seems that whenever Paul was on stage, taking pictures, or in an interview, the camera was on. As soon Paul walked off the stage, the feed died. Except for a few moments in the car, after lunch, and some downtime at an empty baseball field, we didn't see much behind the scenes at all.

Why? What's behind the black curtain? Nothing, I'm sure. Paul eating a sandwich. Paul being briefed about his next meeting or going over a new Hillary Clinton zinger. But that's the stuff our prying eyes want to see, no? The stuff between the rehearsed stump speeches.

There were very brief moments, sometimes seemingly captured by accident, where some humanity sneaked through. In the car, on the way to another speech, Paul listened to "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, which is a thing real people do. A younger campaign staffer tries to play a song from Florence and the Machine, and she and Paul fumble to play on the car stereo through her phone. That didn't seem rehearsed, but too many moments like that and others we didn't get to see apparently make Paul too transparent for comfort.

Tech just isn't as powerful as tech companies want us to believe, good or bad, and Rand Paul's decision to livestream himself isn't as revolutionary as it sounds. Most of all, it's boring.

Boring. Well that was a lot money spent for what exactly? I guess it's good thing Rand did drop a cussword to a question because if it wasn't for that there wouldn't be anything memorable from this experience at all. What's leading the news on Rand today? His "revolutionary" livestream feed? No it's a comment he made Drake last night about employers having the right to firing LGBT workers. Lovely.

 

[BGfree]

Personally, I think the who affair is getting to be too much for him. The expense of the Kentucky caucus combined with days on the road campaigning, coupled with the pressure he's getting back in Kentucky,..and let's face it. Things aren't going very well for him.

Rand is a fairly regular kind of guy. He had a life before politics. I think he's tired of the game and regrets getting involved in it. But he's in a situation where he can't just flip a switch and go back to his previous life without disappointing a lot of people.

To top it all off, I think he's pretty disgusted with his campaign staff. I've never thought that they had good judgement.

 

[timosman]

Rand needs to stop listening to the interns. The 2 chicks tagging along with him in the car did not strike me as too bright. Who were they listening to ? Linda Ronstadt ?

 

[kbs021]

Guys.. Does anyone not get this was clearly a joke.. Lol.. The "dumbass" comment was a solid joke. He is trolling the "dropout" questions. I love it. We are moving up in the polls, students for rand is rocking, prime time debate, etc. Now let's all buy a Miletich shirt on Nov 5th.

 

[timosman]

Guys.. Does anyone not get this was clearly a joke.. Lol.. The "dumbass" comment was a solid joke. He is trolling the "dropout" questions. I love it. We are moving up in the polls, students for rand is rocking, prime time debate, etc. Now let's all buy a Miletich shirt on Nov 5th.

No, it was not a joke. It was a blatant attempt of self promotion by the social media interns from Rand's campaign. These guys need to pad their resumes with stunts like this. Hey, we ran this viral campaign for Sen Paul when he ran for Prez. The campaign got destroyed but we gained a lot of experience. Would you like to hire us ? We promise we will do better this time.

 

[garyallen59]

No, it was not a joke. It was a blatant attempt of self promotion by the social media interns from Rand's campaign. These guys need to pad their resumes with stunts like this. Hey, we ran this viral campaign for Sen Paul when he ran for Prez. The campaign got destroyed but we gained a lot of experience. Would you like to hire us ? We promise we will do better this time.

No. It was a joke.