Why did his candidacy fail? What could he have done differently? Just some of my reflections:
- Rand Paul was in the anti-establishment camp, but others, particularly the Outsiders (Trump, Carson, and Fiorina), took all the media oxygen. Rand Paul was seen as part of the Congress, and most of the discontent is with incumbents of either party. I think in part Rand Paul needed to underscore his bipartisan record on criminal justice reform, privacy rights, and auditing the Fed, that his politics aren't business as usual.
- Rand Paul Needed To Assert a Truth Teller Persona. Rand Paul should not have let Donald Trump get away with the absurd notion that because he can buy the Presidency, he is somehow a more virtuous candidate. But Paul needed to "get real" about the erosion of economic liberty under Obama and unsustainable debt and liabilities. Foreign wars are unnecessary, counterproductive and a drain on national resources. The economic nationalism of Trump and Sanders is corrupt mercantilism.
- The Social Issues Played a Factor. To a certain extent, Paul's social conservatism limits his appeal to "fiscal conservative, social liberal" libertarians/young voters. I think there are ways to play social conservative theme on the national level, e.g., the subsidies of Planned Parenthood, without the federal government intervening on personal choices.
- The Campaign Was On the Defensive. Whether it was constantly having to deal with neocon charges of isolationism and/or compromising national security by holding the NSA in check against arbitrary searches of phone records (e.g., Rubio and Christie), Rand Paul was on the defensive; it's like constantly having to play on your opponent's home court. To a certain extent, it was to be expected because his father had to deal with neocon attacks in the last 2 campaigns. I think that you have to make the neocons play defense, e.g., on bloated defense budgets, the corrupt budget deals to feed the war machines, the endless wars and nation building. To a limited degree, he did do so; for example, he talked about being the true conservative in the race, but he rarely managed to force his opponents to respond. I think that he would have been better served to preempt these attacks in his own words and turn the tables on them.
- Rand Paul had sent a mixed message on pro-liberty issues; his position for a war with ISIS conflicts with his dad's more comprehensive, consistent non-interventionist policies. I myself also had differences with his immigration, refugee and trade stands. I spent hours on Facebook rebuking Ron Paul purist supporters who accused him of being a heretic to the cause and for endorsing Romney in 2012 (after the latter clinched the nomination).
- It Just Wasn't the Right Time For His Message. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are winning votes by promising more free stuff. This was just not the right election year to discuss austerity; there's a lot of insecurity in a weak economy. People aren't seeing the implications of a huge national debt, high regulations, and massive unfunded liabilities in practical terms. The idea of Draconian cuts in social welfare or other entitlements given Food Stamp Nation and record low LFPR was unpopular; people will accept politically unpopular reform only when they see no alternative. (It may seem I'm contradicting myself in terms of truth-telling; I'm talking of having to respond to which special-interest budget item to cut; granted, Paul posted a 5-year plan, but you can't discuss specifics in minute allocations of debate time; I think you need to talk in terms like a 3% across-the-board spending cut.)
- Rand Paul should have run against 16 years of Bush and Obama. This was a key point in two prior posts of how Rand Paul might retool his campaign, by targeting the spendthrift, anti-market and military interventionist policies of the last two administrations.
- Rand Paul did not adequately differentiate himself from the rest of the candidates. For example, the GOP field was almost uniformly immigration restrictionist and foreign interventionist. The problem is that you have people basically arguing who is more restrictionist or able to project military toughness, e.g., Cruz' suggestion he would make the desert glow under bombing runs. I agree that Paul addresses these matters but in a highly nuanced fashion--e.g., complaining about a power grab by Obama vs. the intrinsic US defense rationale for intervention, period. Instead of trying to find room on the tip of a neocon pin--a battle he would never win, Paul needed to talk about unintended consequences, an inefficient, ineffective deployment of scarce resources in a country with a $19T debt.
- Rand Paul needed to run a more populist campaign. Trump and Sanders, for instance, have developed pitches against stupid government and the plutocrats/big corporations, protectionist pitches. There are ways to frame a populist pro-liberty push; for instance, the Federal Reserve has punished savers with interest rate manipulations, near zero for the first 7 years of Obama's Presidency, many of them in lower or fixed-income households. Protectionist policies result in higher prices and a lower standard of living for consumers, including lower-income. Government bottlenecks on new drug approvals have opportunity costs of people dying from lack of access. Anti-business tax and regulatory policies impair economic and job growth. Minimum wage hikes reduce job opportunities for younger or less-skilled workers. Government regulations make it more difficult for people to start a business or to compete against bigger companies. The basic point is that Big Government is a product of corrupt self-serving special interests, including the poverty, prison, and military industrial complexes. The way you deal with special interests is to starve the beast.
I'm not saying that Rand Paul didn't address some of the points I raised in some fashion. But, for example, I have read a lot of applied psychology literature, and the idea that a voter is doing to go to Rand's website to research his 5-year budget plan in detail is unrealistic. Current politics is done in soundbites, whether it was Bill Clinton's "It's the economy, stupid!", Herman Cain's 9-9-9, Trump's Draconian mass deportation plan, religious profiling in immigration, "build the wall and they'll pay for it", take Iraqi oil, "our leaders are stupid", etc., you have to manage your message and not lapse into the nuances of policy. There are pithy ways to package a pro-liberty message, e.g., "are we Rome? Greece?" Are we going to treat citizens as independent decision-makers, adults or like children, unable to cope without Big Nanny?
This being said, Rand Paul and I have different personalities, and he managed to get elected Senator from Kentucky; I have never been elected anything except maybe the head altar boy back in my Texas AFB parish when I was a teenager (thanks to my little brother's support). So I realize things are easier said than done.
I thank Rand Paul for ably representing the interests of pro-liberty conservatives; this election cycle has been unconventional, featuring the Trumpmania phenomenon. It's very weird that in the same cycle the Dems are targeting the 1%, a 1%'er may actually win the GOP nomination, based, of all things, on a populist appeal.
Where do pro-liberty conservatives go now that Paul has effectively withdrawn? I think it largely depends on whether Trump wins the nomination. I will not support a leftist, like Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, or Trump. I think it's possible if Trump wins, it will spawn a third party challenge. It depends who emerges to head that ticket; Bloomberg is not acceptable. Most likely, I would vote for the LP candidate, probably Gary Johnson, in protest.
I think that Trump or Cruz would have high negatives making them unacceptable to most voters in the general election, although I could support Cruz. I'm probably leaning to support Rubio in the upcoming SC primary.
I see Rubio as probably the most electable of the remaining candidates, and he has a reasonably good fiscally conservative voting record. This is not to say I am happy with a number of things Rubio has said, including his strident position on Iraq and his fear-mongering defense of the NSA phone records program. But he's much better than the Dems or Trump.
I could also support any of the governors (Kasich, Bush or Christie). I have already written one-off posts against Carson and Fiorina. I may continue the series depending on NH results; I anticipate one or maybe 2 of the governors will withdraw (I suspect Christie).
