Indeed, reforming the GOP is as much the task Paul has set for himself as seeking its presidential nomination in 2016. He is unusually popular with young activists for a member of his party. He has spoken at venues like historically black Howard University, where he is less likely to encounter Republican voters than in Cedar Rapids.
Sometimes his efforts to broaden the party’s appeal have sat uneasily alongside his quest to be the most reliable Tea Party conservative. This has led him to thread some important needles—and also occasionally sound too equivocal. Issues like marriage, abortion, immigration, and even drugs may prove difficult to straddle.
Gillespie worries that if “Paul continues to send significantly different messages to different audiences, he will end up alienating all his possible supporters.”
That’s a real risk. But if one could win the Republican presidential nomination by sounding like Gary Johnson, Johnson would have stayed in the GOP primaries rather than running as the Libertarian Party nominee.
[Ron's '12 run discussed here]
Rand Paul’s problems are the Republican Party’s. The GOP must find a way to speak to new people and grow, without repelling its current base. It must determine how best to adapt old principles to changing political circumstances, building a fresh case for what conservatives consider permanent things.
That’s no easy task, so it’s unsurprising Paul has stumbled at times. But more Republicans need to be trying. Most other outreach-oriented Republicans tend to disrespect the base and its values, in style if not substance—think Jon Huntsman, for example. Many conservatives simply repeat campaign slogans of the Reagan era.
A more robust federalism might help both pro-lifers and drug-legalizers realize more of their short-term policy goals than rhetoric about ending either Roe v. Wade or the war on drugs ever could. Libertarians might learn to shrink government the way statists have often expanded it—through incremental steps—with politically achievable things like more lenient sentences for drug offenders, freeing more people than by talking about heroin.
But to succeed within any political party, one must first make common cause with the rank and file. Those of like mind with Paul might want to consider this verse when next in Cedar Rapids: “Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
