Sen. Rand Paul aggressively courting evangelicals to win over GOP establishment

[Warlord]

What Reason and all these people dont understand is that the 10th amendment exists, works and is being used by KS, MO, CO, WA in the last 6 months and Rand fully supports it.

Tell the Feds to get lost. Their drug "laws" are unconstitutional. No need to repeal them and let them tax our drugs. Just laugh at them

 

[RonPaulFanInGA]

I thought Rand Paul was pro-meth, pro-drug legalization and a war-on-drugs quitter? I am so confused.

 

[FSP-Rebel]

What Reason and all these people dont understand is that the 10th amendment exists, works and is being used by KS, MO, CO, WA in the last 6 months and Rand fully supports it.

Tell the Feds to get lost. Their drug "laws" are unconstitutional. No need to repeal them and let them tax our drugs. Just laugh at them

Amen. Nullification is our friend and the best way to further the message at times when doing top-down won't happen as fast.

 

[Brett85]

"It's Happening" has a point, but I still think it's necessary to repeal the federal drug laws in the long run. Repealing the federal ban on marijuana would take away the power of the federal government to conduct all of these raids. The raids will ultimately happen under a different President if the federal ban on marijuana isn't repealed.

 

[Warlord]

The Federal laws will go when a number of states have already made it legal and it becomes increasingly absurd like the obscenity laws.

Congress will always pass laws that are unconstitutional. The drug laws are just another example.

Your obsessed with a substance contained in an act that is unconstitutional. Removing it doesn't deal with the problem. They're already making bath salts illegal and other so called 'designer drugs'

Congress will continue its unconstitutional behavior whatever happens.

 

[supermario21]

Reason is distinctly different than Lewrockwell in terms of libertarian reading, that's for sure. Reason is Gary Johnson and Rockwell is Ron Paul. Reason hates religion and Rockwell writers are pro-religion in many cases, and have made me feel very comfortable as a faithful Catholic and libertarian. I wish Rand was more full-throated in his endorsement of drug legalization but I also understand his approach here. He's doing more to make progress on the issue than anyone associated with Reason is. It's going to take Rand's approach to win people over on this issue.

Rand will need to be more specific so he doesn't lose his libertarian base who is likely very disappointed on this. Though I give him credit for trying to reach out to the evangelicals. His job is a lot harder than we could imagine. But in Iowa if we can get even 15-20% of the evangelical vote we will have done our job. I would love to see him do something with Pat Robertson though and call for outright legalization.

 

[Brett85]

I would love to see him do something with Pat Robertson though and call for outright legalization.

By the time 2016 rolls around, opposition to marijuana legalization will be an extreme minority position. You will only have about 30-40% of the population opposed to marijuana legalization. Opposition to marijuana legalization will be viewed as an extreme authoritarian position by then. It doesn't make any sense to take an anti marijuana legalization position given the current trends in the polls. The last poll I saw even showed that a majority of young evangelicals don't think that it's immoral to use marijuana. Not all evangelicals are a bunch of extreme authoritarians like these so called "evangelical leaders" in Iowa apparently are.

 

[Warlord]

He's unlikely to do that because he'd be running on the GOP platform so unless you can change that forget it.

He should hold events though in CA and promise them to stop the raids and see if they will consider him (probably not)

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Love or hate his pragmatic approach, Rand is making a fundamental play for evangelicals that Ron Paul didn't make. Since the GOP establishment is clearly trying to withdraw from social issues come 2016, that creates an opening for wooing evangelicals who are being abandoned. Rand can mouth the status quo GOP conservative rhetoric at the national level, while advocating for states to withdraw from the federal policy via nullification. This gives him a way to dialogue with social conservatives while the policy moves towards decentralization and decoupling of the issues from the federal level. Overall progress.

 

[Brett85]

If Rand wants to get the support of evangelicals, he should make sure to consistently take a strong pro life stance on the abortion issue. Social conservatives care far more about abortion than drug legalization. Comments like "thousands of exceptions to an abortion ban" will hurt Rand far more than any perceived notion that he has libertarian views on drug policy. The key to winning the vote of social conservatives is to be the candidate who's the defender of life, not advocate keeping activities illegal in which there's no victim.

 

[speciallyblend]

Rand is reminding me i wasted 9 years in the gop. Time to remove the r from my name.

 

[fr33]

I just don't see how evangelicals are the future of anything except for losing.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I just don't see how evangelicals are the future of anything except for losing.

Just remember what always happens. Always.

 

[FSP-Rebel]

I just don't see how evangelicals are the future of anything except for losing.

They're an extra coalition that helps win the nomination and it's better to seek out their support first before someone else does.

 

[BlackTerrel]

http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

26% of the population and probably about half of Republicans. Yeah no shit - no Republican is winning an election without these people.

 

[Natural Citizen]

http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

26% of the population and probably about half of Republicans. Yeah no shit - no Republican is winning an election without these people.

So...can we make the religion thread a public venue then? After all. We'll need for the base to see how they think and discuss political matters among themselves. Right?

Of course, there is always the almighty op-ed if this cannot be accomplished and one is so motivated, I suppose.

 

[WhistlinDave]

Again you want him to use exact words and terms you want to hear but he doesn't. He says it in a different way. Big deal. He's on record supporting the 10th and clearly isn't interested in prosecuting a war on drugs against CO, CA and WA and if Obama does Rand might find a winning issue as far as the drug debate goes via-a-vis defending the 10th amendment and railing against Federal abuse.

It could play very well in those states...

When he's in California Rand should remind people there that he is against Obama's medical marijuana dispensary raids. If he keeps repeating it and being critical of Obama's actions he could do the unthinkable and compete there though I don't expect him to but the position will work for him in OR which I can see being competitive after 8 years of failed liberalism

I almost agree, except for one thing. If Rand made legalization of marijuana, or at least respect for state medical marijuana laws a large part of his platform in California, along with other important civil liberties issues that Obama has completely failed on (4th, 5th Amendments, Habeus Corpus, etc.) it could turn this blue state red in 2016 -- EXCEPT for that one little issue that most Californians hate the (R) for. The sanctity of life vs. "freedom of choice" issue is insurmountable on the West coast for a Republican candidate who favors the sanctity of life.

However, that won't stop him from winning the primary here, and California has a huge number of delegates. So it would still be to his advantage to campaign here on a platform of changing the war on drugs. I think even most Repubs on the West coast agree with medical marijuana and getting the Federal govt. to leave us alone.