boneyard bill
Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2010
- Messages
- 436
I hate to say this, but it looks like the Rand Paul campaign is in serious trouble. There is, of course, the disappointing fund-raising news. It isn't that Rand has raised so little money, it's that he has raised little compared to his competition. What would have been a successful effort 4 years ago looks paltry by today's standards. There is hope, of course, that Matt Kibbe's superpac will do better Jesse Benton's has done, and Rand should raise more money more quickly if he rises in the polls.
But there is also the problem of the message. Frankly, I think his latest "chain-saw" video was pretty bad. It made Rand look comical. Look, Rand Paul has been at the top of the charts in Frank Luntz's focus group analyses. So why don't Rand's handlers let Rand be Rand instead of turning him into a late-night axe-murderer.
Then there's the police issue. Rand was among the top three Republicans in the polls until he spoke out against the police in Missouri and in New York City. It might play well among black voters but they don't vote in the GOP primaries, and it's not enough to win them over in November either. Of course, Paul also met with Cliven Bundy who also had his brush with the government and is popular with many GOP conservatives. Rand seemed to be trying to capitalize on a common anti-government sentiment among both blacks and whites. But there's a big difference. Blacks are very dissatisfied with the LOCAL police but look to the federal government for protection. This is hardly surprising given the history of slavery and segregation. But whites are primarily dissatisfied with the federal police, but have a lot more confidence in the local police. I don't think Rand can square that circle. What is a common distrust of certain institutions of government doesn't add up to a common distrust of government as a whole.
But there is another problem. I welcomed the idea of a Ron Paul type candidate who would just be a bit less stridently ideological and a bit more nuanced. Of course, I soon became disappointed that Rand was saying some things that I disagreed with, but I finally concluded that I had accept the fact that Rand couldn't be expected nuance things in exactly the way I wanted them nuanced. However, I now feel that his nuances have been so frequent and pervasive that his campaign has lost any message at all.
Lighter sentences for drug users and NSA surveillance are important issues for a few niche voters, but aren't going to excite masses of Republican voters. I fear the campaign has lost clarity and consistency, and they need to get their act together pretty soon.
I think a great deal hangs on the first debate coming up in August. As the saying goes, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." I don't think Rand needs to "win" that debate. I'm not sure what that even means. But I do think that Rand does need to make good first impression, and for that he needs clarity and consistency. That will be tough to achieve because Trump will be in that debate, and he will draw most of the attention and most of the fire.
Rand is going to need to come through with a convincing message. Ronald Reagan had a simple technique. He picked just a few main issues and stuck to them. Yes, he opposed abortion, but he didn't talk a lot about it. He was against the Panama Canal Treaty, but he didn't make it a major theme of his campaign. He stuck to cutting taxes, building up our defenses, and de-regulation.
That's what Rand needs to do. He needs to pick out the main themes of his campaign that are of concern to a wide section of the electorate and hammer away as those issues and not get side-tracked by the more marginal issues.
But there is also the problem of the message. Frankly, I think his latest "chain-saw" video was pretty bad. It made Rand look comical. Look, Rand Paul has been at the top of the charts in Frank Luntz's focus group analyses. So why don't Rand's handlers let Rand be Rand instead of turning him into a late-night axe-murderer.
Then there's the police issue. Rand was among the top three Republicans in the polls until he spoke out against the police in Missouri and in New York City. It might play well among black voters but they don't vote in the GOP primaries, and it's not enough to win them over in November either. Of course, Paul also met with Cliven Bundy who also had his brush with the government and is popular with many GOP conservatives. Rand seemed to be trying to capitalize on a common anti-government sentiment among both blacks and whites. But there's a big difference. Blacks are very dissatisfied with the LOCAL police but look to the federal government for protection. This is hardly surprising given the history of slavery and segregation. But whites are primarily dissatisfied with the federal police, but have a lot more confidence in the local police. I don't think Rand can square that circle. What is a common distrust of certain institutions of government doesn't add up to a common distrust of government as a whole.
But there is another problem. I welcomed the idea of a Ron Paul type candidate who would just be a bit less stridently ideological and a bit more nuanced. Of course, I soon became disappointed that Rand was saying some things that I disagreed with, but I finally concluded that I had accept the fact that Rand couldn't be expected nuance things in exactly the way I wanted them nuanced. However, I now feel that his nuances have been so frequent and pervasive that his campaign has lost any message at all.
Lighter sentences for drug users and NSA surveillance are important issues for a few niche voters, but aren't going to excite masses of Republican voters. I fear the campaign has lost clarity and consistency, and they need to get their act together pretty soon.
I think a great deal hangs on the first debate coming up in August. As the saying goes, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." I don't think Rand needs to "win" that debate. I'm not sure what that even means. But I do think that Rand does need to make good first impression, and for that he needs clarity and consistency. That will be tough to achieve because Trump will be in that debate, and he will draw most of the attention and most of the fire.
Rand is going to need to come through with a convincing message. Ronald Reagan had a simple technique. He picked just a few main issues and stuck to them. Yes, he opposed abortion, but he didn't talk a lot about it. He was against the Panama Canal Treaty, but he didn't make it a major theme of his campaign. He stuck to cutting taxes, building up our defenses, and de-regulation.
That's what Rand needs to do. He needs to pick out the main themes of his campaign that are of concern to a wide section of the electorate and hammer away as those issues and not get side-tracked by the more marginal issues.
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