Michael Reagan
I disagree with some of Rand Paul’s more libertarian positions, especially on social issues. And I’m certainly not endorsing him or anyone else to be the Republican nominee for president at this time. But Sen. Paul of Kentucky did two things recently that won my favor.
He showed the 2,500 conservative activists at the CPAC conference that he understands what the GOP must do if it wants to take the Senate this fall and win back the White House. Then, on Monday, he wrote a good column for Breitbart.com calling for his fellow Republican presidential wannabes to, as the headline said, “Stop warping Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy.”
CPAC, as all conservatives and political junkies know, is the annual bathing beauty competition for every Republican who’s ever had a daydream about running for president.
Sen. Paul’s brand of libertarian-leaning conservatism has shifted the GOP’s center of gravity his way, and everyone at CPAC knew it. He was the landslide winner in the straw poll, taking 31 percent of the vote. Ted Cruz stumbled in second with 11 percent, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson had 9 percent. The media’s favorite conservative, Chris Christie, managed 8 percent.
At CPAC, Sen. Paul had a personal victory, but he also did the right thing for the GOP. He went out of his way to give his full support to fellow Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who’s up for re-election.
It wasn’t because Sen. Paul is moving to the McConnell center of the GOP; it was because he wants his party to win the U.S. Senate in the fall.
A Republican Senate is Prize Number One. Making friends and cementing cracks in the party is what’s most important right now, and Sen. Paul understands that side of the equation.
In his Breitbart column, he did two good things. He reminded his more bellicose fellow presidential competitors that their hero Ronald Reagan was a peacemaker and a negotiator, not a war-maker. Saying he admired Ronald Reagan because he “was not rash or reckless with regard to war,” Sen. Paul pointed out that my father, who believed in “Peace Through Strength,” was attacked harshly by the hawks in the Republican Party.
No comments:
Post a Comment