Rand Paul: Donald Trump setting GOP up for worst defeat since 1964
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul - a Republican candidate for president - today warned his party risks its worst electoral beating since 1964 if frontrunner Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination.
"It would probably be the worst defeat we've had since (Barry) Goldwater, I'd predict, if Trump where the nominee," Paul said in a Boston Herald Radio "Morning Meeting" interview, referring to the 1964 race during which the Republican from Arizona carried only six states against Lyndon B. Johnson.
A recent Quinnipiac national poll showed Trump lapping the field with 28 percent of those surveyed saying they support him. Paul, who entered the race with a strong following of libertarians and conservatives, languished towards the back of the pack with 2 percent of the survey.
Paul today blasted Trump, accusing the celebrity mogul of masking liberal views with red-meat rhetoric.
"There is a lot of bluster and anger on Trump's part, but a lot of his solutions are big government solutions," Paul said. "I think eventually people are going to come to their senses and say 'oh my God, I liked his angry vitriol, but I didn't realize he was for gun control, Obamacare, increasing taxes, and taking private property.' "
The Kentucky senator had lashed out at Trump in the first primary debate earlier this month and said he will be campaigning hard to warn Republican about what he described as the billionaire's moderate views.
"If one side doesn't have ideas or has ideas that seem to be more liberal Democrat than Republican, we need to point these out to people," he said. "It would be a tragedy if we were to get the nomination and then we discover we nominated a liberal Democrat. That would be a great irony."
Paul singled out Trump's stand on eminent domain -- a hot-button issue for libertarians.
"He has been a proponent of using eminent domain to take property from small property owners and use it to make business and make money for himself," Paul said. "There was a case of a woman who had lived in a house for 30 years. He built a casino next door and when she wouldn't sell, he used the government to take it from her."
Last week, Paul wrote an online oped charging that Trump is a supporter of the Kelo Supreme Court decision, which allowed the government to take private property under eminent domain.
"When people find this out, they are going to be horrified," Paul said.
Paul's feud with the frontrunner began at the first Republican primary debate when Trump said he would not rule out running as a third-party candidate.
"That really ticked me off," Paul said. "I have nothing against people running as a third party. I do have a problem with people being dishonest and using the Republicans to get a lot of attention and then running as a third party."
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