We have a shot at 2016!!!!

[Constitutional Paulicy]

I was just reading Doug Wead's blog and his comments were along the lines of what many have had to say in this thread. Thought you may want to read it as well......

Rand Paul for President: 2016

The point is this, our dream is still alive. And in a way, it is still in our hands. And now there is a very real chance of victory. Now the real work begins. If this country is to have another rebirth it is up to us. Ron Paul will either be forgotten, a name swept away in history like Autumn leaves blowing across a lawn, or his statues will stand in public parks, as the father of a reborn nation and the father of our most popular president.

http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/rand-paul-for-president-2016/

 

[Aratus]

rand can potus run! the way is clear...

 

[___j___]

What makes you think anywhere close to a majority of Americans are pro-Constitution? A pro-Constitution candidate might be enough to bring people like us on board, but there's no evidence that would be enough to win an nationwide election. I heard this same kind of argument 4 yrs ago. I said it wouldn't work then, and I say the same thing now. We need a totally new strategy. Even taking over the GOP won't be enough this time. Remember what we're competing against: promises of free stuff stolen from others, printing money by the truckload, corruption, huge government handouts to corporations, union thugs at the polling places, media who are in love with the Left's agenda, and on and on... ...Most of America clearly doesn't feel (that Obama is the worst president). Many people love him and think he's doing a wonderful job. Until we come to terms with that and the reasons why, we will never be able to put forward the right candidate, platform or strategy, much less actually win.

You don't consider the polls from early in 2012 that showed Obama and Ron Paul running neck and neck with 42% each, at the same time as polls showed Obama and Mitt running neck and neck with 43% each, count as evidence that a libertarian-leaning constitutionalist can win? Around the same time, Santorum was behind Obama something like 39 to 52, which is pretty clear evidence that a big-spending heavy-religion social-conservative guy like Santorum cannot possibly win the general election in 2012 or 2016, even if his theocratic-leaning speeches might play well in the rural repub-leaning states. Those places simply don't have the electoral college votes to matter. But somebody like Ron Paul does well in rural areas for his freedom-of-religion stances, and does well in urban areas for his freedom-from-religion stances, and does well across the board for his free-enterprise stances, except in the deeply-dependent urban cores. Point being, there is a serious kernel of truth to your statement that we need to understand why the average everyday voter is willing to accept the tyranny of the majority. But your claim that there is no evidence that a constitutionalist can win, and that taking over the GOP is not enough, and that we need a Totally New Strategy (which you fail to offer may I point out...) seems pretty defeatist.

We got 1m primary-votes in 2008 and won zero pluralities, we won double the popvotes in 2012 with fewer months of active campaigning (and won non-binding pluralities in 6 to 12 states depending on how you count -- plus we won the primary-popvote in the Virgin Islands and might also have won the primary-popvote in Maine had the counting been fair), not to mention Gary Johnson getting 1% of the general election votes (quite good for a third-party run). With *any* luck we can double everything again in 2016, winning 12 to 24 pluralities and winning 4m popvotes. That might not be enough to win the potus nominee slot outright, but it will be enough to give us power over the potus/vpotus/secdef/secstate nominees, power over the platform planks, and power on the RNCmte which keeps trying to rewrite the rules on us -- not to mention fame and power at the county level as precinct chairs and county chairs... which is where it often counts the most.

As for people loving Obama, or more generically, any Huey Long slash FDR candidate that will promise them More Free Stuff... that is a serious difficulty. But it is not a fatal difficulty, once people wake up to the facts: #1, actually getting More Free Stuff depends entirely on the willingness of EU/Japan/China/WallStreet bankers to loan us a *new* trillion bucks in More National Debt, each and every year, indefinitely. Should that willingness fail... and it can disappear in an electoral heartbeat... those promises of More Free Stuff will all be broken. #2, even if the promises aren't broken for the people old enough to vote now, and they get the More Free Stuff they were promised, driving the country further into debt, their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids will suffer for the immorality of foolish ancestors. Should the non upper class voters ever realize they are enslaving their posterity... and again, once this meme gets going it can spread to the entire voting populace in an electoral heartbeat... those promised of More Free Stuff will seem like the siren-song of a seedy criminal, beckoning from a dark alley, rather than the current misperception that the welfare-state is a bold truth spoken by a true humanitarian leader. #3, dependency on the mainstream media for information, which is to say, trust that the mainstream media isn't lying through their teeth and purposely shaping the discourse for an ulterior motive, is a pretty similar scenario. Once people realize that the Fed bailout recipients and the defense contractor shareholders and the mainstream media board of directors are more or less the exact same people, and that it is in their interest to have a twin-party duopoly where they pawn off the presumptuous nominees onto the gullible, it will not take long before nobody believes MSNBC/NYT or FOX/NR, and instead get their news from the internet.

There are more pertinent facts, but those are the big three, as I see them. (Plus, fact number zero, the folks in the liberty-movement have been figuring out the rules and the arcane esoteric party machine, so that we have the political knowledge to remake it from the inside.) Obviously, remaking the GOP, and educating the populace about the deficits / payback / media facts mentioned above, won't happen overnight. But once it does start to happen, we will reach a tip-over point, and suddenly *everybody* will be mostly in agreement. Look at the progress we've made with the Audit The Fed meme, for example. That is a tiny thing, in the big picture... but it is the seed that will grow and bloom and propagate through the minds of everyday voters, disgusted with central totalitarians trying to run their lives. The question is if we'll be ready for the day when the sea-change comes. Are you *sure* you want to abandon all we've accomplished, and switch to some Totally New Strategy, now that we can almost taste success? For the first time since 1932, we are within striking distance of defeating the Free Stuff / fiat / corruption / bailout / union / media totalitarian-leaning machine. You were correct predicting a loss in 2008. You were correct to predict a loss in 2012. Whether we win in 2016 remains to be seen -- but we must stay the course, for if we turn aside now, that will only guarantee that we lose in 2016, right? Keep calm and carry on.

 

[FrankRep]

Get ready to hammer the Internet. I want Rand Paul 2016 displayed everywhere.


Sen. Rand Paul Takes On Government Bullies

Sen. Rand Paul Calls for End of Aid to Pakistan, Egypt, Libya

Sen. Rand Paul’s Bill to Protect Citizens From Drone Surveillance

Sen. Rand Paul Files Two Anti-TSA Bills

Sen. Rand Paul Wants Senate to Actually Read Bill Before Voting

Sen. Rand Paul Stands Against Reid's Senate on Iran

Sen. Rand Paul Unveils FY2013 Budget Proposal

Sen. Rand Paul Defends Property Owners from Federal Agencies

Sen. Rand Paul Blocked from Flight for Refusing TSA Groping

Sen. Rand Paul Warns GOP Voters: Gingrich, Romney Are Not Conservatives

Sen. Rand Paul Refunds $500,000 of His Budget to U.S. Treasury

Sen. Rand Paul's Stand Against the TSA

Sen. Rand Paul: Time to Repeal No Child Left Behind

Sen. Rand Paul Works to Protect State Gold Money From Taxation

Sen. Rand Paul Defends Israel

Sen. Rand Paul: End All Foreign Aid

 

[___j___]

If we sit back and wait, we are doomed and will lose. That's the worst thing we could possibly do. We need to go full-speed ahead and damn the torpedos. We need a full-bore national takeover. We will still have an unfriendly RNC for four years, until we can replace the RNC in 2016.

Absolutely true. Significant correction, though: the members of the Repub Natl Cmte are up for re-election in 2014, at the various stacon meetings. Ron Paul won the popvote in the Virgin Islands -- they have three seats on the RNCmte, but I bet all three are Romney supporters at the moment. Maine elected some pauliticians as their RNCmte members, as did Alaska, and other places. But we need to start working out in the very near future (certainly by summer 2013) which three liberty-candidates, on a state-by-state basis, we would like to have as state party chair, national committeewoman, and national committeeman. Typically, to get a position like that, you have to have been loyally serving the repub party for decades, which means getting somebody like Maine's age-21 Ashley Ryan into the seat is nearly impossible unless you have control of the vast majority of delegates at your 2014 state convention.

However, even in places where we don't have the numbers, we can still support a candidate who will not be our enemy. Consider the stuff we saw in Tampa, with Morton Blackwell of VA, fighting Ginsberg and Sununu and Boehner and Priebus -- not because he was a Ron Paul supporter, he was a Mitt Romney supporter, but because he knows that fair is fair, and he wants to beat the dems, not turn the repub party into the Mayor-Daley-style DNC. Point being, even if your state is unlikely to experience a paulitician supermajority at the 2014 state convention, you need to find some chair/ncm/ncw candidates that are well-respected by mainstream establishment repubs, but also at the same time fair, like Morton Blackwell. (It helps if they supported Goldwater in 1964 and Reagan in 1976, for instance. It *might* help if they supported Buchanan in 1992, or Perot.)

Anyways, if we want to get some seats on the RNCmte, we need to start looking for 2014 candidates now, and solidifying support for those candidates to challenge the incum RNCmte folks in your state. No matter what happens in the 2014 state conventions, the 2016 state conventions will be our second chance. But don't ignore the midterms, simply because no president is getting elected then! Remember the 2010 tea-party successes, including electing Rand to the senate. It will really help us in 2014 if we can get a double-handful of liberty senators elected in 2014 (e.g. Gary Johnson in NM and Judge Napolitano in NJ), but we also must focus on winning elections within the repub hierarchy: precinct chair and county chair at the local level is crucial, but to fight alleged-new-rule#12 stuff, we must also win state chair, national committeewoman, and national comitteeman. (As a bonus, those are automatic and unbound superdelegates in 2016... which might be the deciding factor in whether we have plurality to nominate from the floor.)

 

[___j___]

(If the 2016 nominee is Rubio) then they will lose again. I stand resolute. Constitution or bust.

Actually, although it is certainly too early to say what will happen in 2016, of the choices that are getting bandied about now, Rubio is pretty decent. His voting record is about 80% in favor of liberty, which is not much compared to Rand's 95%, but is dramatically better than McCain's 60% record. Jeb Bush would prolly be about the same as McCain, or a bit worse, and Chris Christie would prolly be about the same as the moderate incum repubs that just lost to dems in massachusetts and maine -- around 45% in favor of liberty. Yuck. Hillary Clinton had a score of 10% when she was in the senate, of course.

Certainly it would be "better" in some pragmatic short-term sense to have Prez Christie over Prez Hillary, if the shiniest-of-two-turds is what happens again for 2016. In such a scenario, though, I'd probably stand resolute with you, and vote for the constitution without regard to whether we would win the general election (cf 2012), since that is what serves our true long-term interests. But, if the choice in 2016 was between a MarcoRubio/RandPaul ticket and a HillaryClinton/ElizabethWarren ticket, then I absolutely positively would rally around the repub nominees. The question isn't whether Rubio is as good as Ron Paul, or even whether Rand Paul is as good as Ron Paul, the question is what level of success do we demand in the repub conventions, for us folks in the liberty-bloc to fully support the party nominee?

Romney was too much of a moderate, too much of a flip-flopper, and too much of a puppet of the elite DC insiders to win us over. Rubio doesn't strike me as being in the same universe as Mitt, because unlike faux teax-parteax member Paul Ryan, from where I sit Rubio is *actually* a member of the tea party, and his voting record proves it. I'm not saying we should support Rubio/Rand as our *first* choice, when Rand/Amash is our first choice (for the sake of argument), and Rand/Rubio is our second choice (or ninth choice or whatever). But there comes a point at which insisting on an ideologically-pure liberty-candidate, and then refusing to rally around the nominee, turns us into a caricature of the Libertarian party, rather than the liberty-wing of the repub party... which is shooting ourselves in the foot. I absolutely agree that 4 more of Obama is prolly a better outcome for us than 8 more of Romney... but I would *way* rather have 8 years of Rubio/Rand instead of 8 years of Hillary/Warren.

 

[idiom]

Would it be better to run like... 8 candidates and have seven of them drop out and endorse Rand in the lead up to Iowa?

 

[___j___]

Since I can see *your* posts, the internet has not yet been conquered, right?

By 2016, the US gov will have complete control of the internet. Grassroots will be decapitated. All we have left is opt out, or bullets.

If your assumptions (stated as assertions) come true, then your conclusion (stated as certainty) will also be true. But since you and I are having this conversation, clearly the govt does NOT yet have "complete control of the internet" as of mid-November 2012, right?

They won't get complete control in 2013 either, if I have anything to say about it. Ditto for the rammed-through alleged-new-rule#12 which might well be used in 2013 to decapitate the grassroots. We need to get resolutions passed at the county level and at the state level, *before* the first RNCmte meeting in January 2013, saying that because of the questionable circumstances and parliamentary violations which were used to ram through rule#12 (cf rigged teleprompter-scripted vote outcomes), the 2008-as-amended-in-2010 rules of the repub party are, and of right ought to be, still fully in force.

Now, maybe you would rather spend your time stockpiling ammo, or building a static-electricity-powered gulch-camoflage device, but if so, you better check your premises. It is not foretold that we will lose the internet, nor that we will lose the feasibility of grassroots campaigning. Maybe you should help us win those battles, instead of making assertions that we must necessarily lose. Sure, sure, go ahead and stockpile some bullets, too -- and use the still-largely-unencumbered internet to search for a defensible arable valley -- nothing wrong with being prepared. But surely you're going to have some free hours, in between your survivalist work-sessions? Rather than watch DVDs on your teevee, or play pool & drink vodka, or whatever you do for entertainment, why not join your local county republican executive committee, as a volunteer now but as an elected precinct chair in 2014? It only takes showing up, a couple hours a week, to do that in most counties. Think of it as a hedging strategy, in case the internet is *not* conquered by 2016.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Actually, although it is certainly too early to say what will happen in 2016, of the choices that are getting bandied about now, Rubio is pretty decent. His voting record is about 80% in favor of liberty, which is not much compared to Rand's 95%, but is dramatically better than McCain's 60% record. Jeb Bush would prolly be about the same as McCain, or a bit worse, and Chris Christie would prolly be about the same as the moderate incum repubs that just lost to dems in massachusetts and maine -- around 45% in favor of liberty. Yuck. Hillary Clinton had a score of 10% when she was in the senate, of course.

Certainly it would be "better" in some pragmatic short-term sense to have Prez Christie over Prez Hillary, if the shiniest-of-two-turds is what happens again for 2016. In such a scenario, though, I'd probably stand resolute with you, and vote for the constitution without regard to whether we would win the general election (cf 2012), since that is what serves our true long-term interests. But, if the choice in 2016 was between a MarcoRubio/RandPaul ticket and a HillaryClinton/ElizabethWarren ticket, then I absolutely positively would rally around the repub nominees. The question isn't whether Rubio is as good as Ron Paul, or even whether Rand Paul is as good as Ron Paul, the question is what level of success do we demand in the repub conventions, for us folks in the liberty-bloc to fully support the party nominee?

Romney was too much of a moderate, too much of a flip-flopper, and too much of a puppet of the elite DC insiders to win us over. Rubio doesn't strike me as being in the same universe as Mitt, because unlike faux teax-parteax member Paul Ryan, from where I sit Rubio is *actually* a member of the tea party, and his voting record proves it. I'm not saying we should support Rubio/Rand as our *first* choice, when Rand/Amash is our first choice (for the sake of argument), and Rand/Rubio is our second choice (or ninth choice or whatever). But there comes a point at which insisting on an ideologically-pure liberty-candidate, and then refusing to rally around the nominee, turns us into a caricature of the Libertarian party, rather than the liberty-wing of the repub party... which is shooting ourselves in the foot. I absolutely agree that 4 more of Obama is prolly a better outcome for us than 8 more of Romney... but I would *way* rather have 8 years of Rubio/Rand instead of 8 years of Hillary/Warren.

I'm a little confused as to where this liberty record of Marco Rubio comes from. I've never noticed him dissenting on any of the big issues. He voted for the NDAA which is a deal-killer right there. I will never. never. never. never vote for someone for President who voted for the NDAA. I don't care if they run Adolph Hitler against him. Good luck losing again.

ETA - and in case you are wondering, I am considered a "soft moderate" in the liberty movement, more willing to compromise with opponents to achieve results than most in the movement. So if I will never vote for someone who voted for the NDAA, you can bet 70% of the Pauler movement will be coming with me on that one. Like I said, nominate Rubio, and lose again. I don't care what monster they run against him.

 

[___j___]

Imagine a debate-stage full of liberty-candidates....

Would it be better to run like... 8 candidates and have seven of them drop out and endorse Rand in the lead up to Iowa?

Yes, absolutely -- that was the main reason the debate-rules were rigged in 2011 so that two-term gov Gary Johnson was booted, whereas one-term gov Mitt Romney was always invited -- to make Ron Paul look alone slash fringe slash crazy. We would like a ton of liberty-people, and even tea-party-people, in the repub primary debates.

But as you point out, we do *not* want a ton of liberty-candidates on the Iowa ballot, because then each of them will get 10% and the winner will be Santorum again. They should all contractually agree beforehand to drop out by December 15th and endorse the liberty-frontrunner at the time, which as of now is likely to be Rand... unless it turns out that Rand is not the frontrunner after the repub primary debates! There is also perhaps the possibility that Rand opts to remain in the Kentucky senate, to avoid losing a liberty-senate seat to some estab type, if we can find a great prez candidate between now and 2015. (Rumor has it that KY law says you cannot run for both offices simultaneously, unlike Ron Paul and his TX seat in the House back in 2008.)

Ideally, what I would really like to see on the debate stage in August 2015 would be Justin Amash, Rand Paul, Gary Johnson (senator from NM since 2014), Judge Napolitano (senator from NJ since 2014... or maybe gov of NJ if he can unseat Christie in their off-year 2013 election?), plus a bunch of tea-party types: Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and so on. Note that Paul balance-the-budget-in-2039 Ryan is a faux-teax-parteax candidate, not a true one. As for establishment-repubs, I'd like to see Mitch Daniels from Indiana (balanced budget guy) as well as Bob McDonnell from Virginia (he chaired the plat cmte in Tampa and was *very* fair to Ron Paul folks... unlike pretty much every other committee at the natcon... plus he was the guy personally responsible for adding an entire section to the repub party platform devoted to the Constitution).

We can also expect to see Santorum and/or Huckabee return for the christianation branch of the tea party voters, and plenty of establishment-types like Jeb Bush. I'm pretty doubtful that Chris Christie will be viable, but four years is a long time, and the everyday voter is a sucker with a short memory, unfortunately. Condi Rice is somewhat of a libertarian-leaning person, despite her neocon reputation, so she might actually be somewhat helpful to us, like Mitch and Bob. However, my real worry is not that we'll see a bunch of establishment-candidates trying to battle each other, but that we'll see a bunch of establishment candidates that use nasty trick tactics to smear and/or overshadow the liberty-candidate.

p.s. There *is* a significant risk to the strategy of running many liberty-candidates in the debates. Remember that all through the debates, Santorum polled way less than 5%, but suddenly in mid-December he started shooting up. The media spin was that his hard-working county-by-county style was doing it... but that's nuts. The real reason he started getting exponential growth was because of a sudden influx of superpac funding, running attack adverts against then-frontrunner-social-conservative Newt, while simultaneously boosting Santorum. Those adverts were not paid for by Santorum, or his backers, from what I can gather -- they were paid for by once-removed or twice-removed supporters of Team Romney, as a way to knock down Gingrich. This tactic is known as the stalking horse. I'm pretty firmly convinced there were at least three stalking-horses run by the backers of Team Romney: first they brought in Rick Perry as a way to knock out Bachmann (Perry was so unprepared to be a prez candidate he *forgot* which departments of the federal govt he claimed to be oh-so-anxious to close down... which might explain his dumb decision to get into the presidential race at all... or might be evidence that he was in the race for some other purpose than winning it himself). Second, they boosted Santorum in the final two or three weeks of December, trying to take down Newt... which worked... but backfired when Santorum ended up winning Iowa by a hair... and backfired further when Santorum used his new fame to win a bunch of primaries. I suspect that Santorum was a stalking-horse who didn't realize his role! Maybe also true of dumb-as-box-of-rocks Perry. There was *one* guy that was a stalking-horse who I'm almost sure knew his role, however, which was Huntsman, former gov from Utah: he stayed *off* of the Iowa ballot, and ran *only* in NH (where he mostly fought with Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich... the biggest threats to a Romney win there), and after taking third there, knocking Gingrich to fourth and taking some votes from Ron Paul, he immediately dropped out (of course endorsing Romney).

Anyways, all this is just conspiracy-nonsense. I have no proof that the shady powers-that-be were trying to game the system, and produce Romney wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, using stalking horse tactics. However, lack of proof about shenanigans in 2012 does not impact my core argument, which is that we must be concerned about the *potential* for stalking-horse shenanigans in 2016. Namely, if we run 8 liberty candidates in the debates, and the powers that be decide to offer the second-place-liberty-candidate a hundred million dollars in superpac advertising if they'll stay in the race rather than drop out, then most likely we will lose Iowa in 2016. Unless all eight of our candidates have the moral fortitude of Ron Paul, there is probably at least one that would take the bait. Forewarned is forearmed, though -- as long as we are careful to pick honorable liberty-candidates only, and get them to contractually sign a mutual agreement that, based on the outcome of statewide head-to-head polling versus the 2016 democrat nominee, whichever one of our liberty-candidates is the frontrunner in terms of predicted-electoral-college-votecount in the general election come December 15th, that one stays in the race, and the other liberty-candidates all drop out (endorsing as and if they so choose).

 

[___j___]

To forget is human, to forgive is divine

I'm a little confused as to where this liberty record of Marco Rubio comes from. I've never noticed him dissenting on any of the big issues.

You mean, vocally dissenting, like Ron Paul? Me neither. But actions speak louder than words. His liberty-record is from those bad old bugaboos in the John Birch Society -- they give a rating to reps and senators on the constitutionality of their voting records. It's a pretty partisan record, with repubs at the top and dems at the bottom, but it gives you a rough idea of which repubs are in the same category as John McCain at 60%, which repubs are in the same category as Michele Bachmann at 85% (like Rubio), and which repubs are in the same category as Rand Paul at 95% (a very select few... but that number is going up). It also gives you a clue as to how bad a dem really is -- Pelosi scores *way* worse than Reid, for instance, which until seeing the voting-record I would not have believed. I also like to use the NTU ranking for fiscal conservatism along with the JBS one for constitutionality, because that helps me see that although some neocon-leaning repubs are bad on freedom, many of them are pretty good on spending & taxation. Romney would have been a big-neocon && big-spender, much like McCain only worse. Lastly, I like to pay attention to the scores across multiple years, since you have anomalies from time to time. Link -- www.votesmart.org

He voted for the NDAA which is a deal-killer right there. I will never. never. never. never vote for someone for President who voted for the NDAA. I don't care if they run Adolph Hitler against him.

Which is a fair enough position to take. There are many single-issue voters in the world, on abortion (policy stance or personal stance), on assault weapon bans, on same-sex marriage, on christianity (policy stance or personal stance), on support of Israel, and so on. I'm absolutely solid with you on the NDAA thing being horrible. But it is not the worst possible bill I can imagine. If there was a bill on the floor that suggested we put all homeless people, gypsies, and those holding undesireable religious views into the gas chambers, as a cost-cutting measure of course, and Rubio signed it (along with Hitler) then I would never vote for him as president -- I'd vote for Hillary broadband-is-a-fundamental-human-right Clinton first, and then immediately flee the country.

But I would mostly forgive Marco his 2011 NDAA vote, if in 2013 or 2014 or 2015 he joined Rand in leading the charge to repeal it. I would *totally* forgive him if he helped make a constitutional amendment that no president could go to war without first getting a declaration of war from congress, and that habeus corpus was an individual right. Ermmm... wait, maybe that would be redundant. Anyways, my point here is that, even if you will not forgive Marco under any circumstances, you can still see that President Marco would be an *improvement* over an actual President Hitler, even if you cannot bring yourself to vote for Marco as the lesser-weevil. Right? Or is the blackness of the soul of Marco so inky that you cannot distinguish his shade from Hillary-soul, nor either of them from Hitler-soul... ?

So if I will never vote for someone who voted for the NDAA, you can bet 70% of the Pauler movement will be coming with me on that one.

Your 70% guesstimate might be true, now... but see my hypothetical above, if Marco was a key player in repealing the NDAA. (Bonus points if he helps Rand disband the TSA and retroactively repeal the anti-PATRIOT-act.) Four years is a long time, after all. If Marco does such things, do you still think that 70% of the liberty-movement folks will hold his 2011 vote against him, during his first couple years in the senate? Also, we have to distinguish between our votes in the straw-polls and the primaries (not to mention as delegates in our precinct-county-district-state-national conventions), from our totally different category of vote in the 2016 general election. Up until at least the second round of the national convention balloting, I'm only interesting in voting for liberty-candidates like Rand & Gary Johnson & Amash.

However, if it becomes clear that we are going to lose the potus nominee slot, then I'd rather we give it to Marco than to Jeb, and that goes double if in return Marco offers (in writing!) to make Rand his secdef. Furthermore, if we end up losing at the natcon again in 2016, and the repub ticket is Jeb/Christie, then I'll be standing resolutely. But if the ticket is Rubio/Rand, then I'll be voting for them, despite Rubio's NDAA vote... because I agree with him about 75% of the time, and Rand as vpotus means I have a very good shot of agreeing 99% of the time a couple cycles later, whereas with Hillary I agree only about 8% of the time.