Two Pauls Are Better Than One!

Four years ago, Rand Paul was helping out his father on a presidential campaign that was not taken very seriously. This was fair, in horse-race terms. Ron Paul seemed like the sort of candidate who runs, makes a statement, introduces an issue, and fades away. The issues were abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending both wars in Central Asia, abolishing the entitlement state, and ending the war on drugs. No Republican candidate adopted any of these issues. Paul’s supporters, younger and rowdier and more akin to quoting Murray Rothbard than other Republicans, were grudgingly accepted.

Two Pauls Are Better Than One!

Fast forward to CPAC 2011. The economic portions of Ron Paul’s agenda are no longer controversial. Rand Paul is a U.S. senator who can command media attention and confused sports fans.

“It’s not just that Rand is a senator,” says William Thompson, a Georgia activist attending with Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty—the group he set up after shutting down his 2008 presidential bid. “He’s one of the senators everyone knows. If you ask somebody who doesn’t follow politics to name a politician, they might name him.”

This is incredible for the CPAC supporters of Paul and Paul who’ve been coming for years. In 2008, Paul didn’t have a booth in the exhibition hall; his fans occupied the one that Mitt Romney abandoned after dropping out of the race. In 2011, they have paid for booths that occupy most of a long row of the hall. They offer copies of Young American Revolution magazine, the official publication of Ron Paul’s youth group, and bumper stickers that decry “George W. Obama” alongside ones that say “We Used To Hunt Communists. Now We Elect Them.”

Paul and Paul’s fans are perhaps the only people in American politics right now who are head over heels in love with their politicians. President Obama’s supporters used to have enthusiasm like this, but it’s tempered. He’s had to disappoint them by governing the country.

The Pauls’ adherents can’t be disappointed. They got this far, didn’t they? And they are unavoidable at CPAC, aren’t they? According to Ron Paul’s camp, his organization spent about $100,000 on discounted tickets (students could attend for $15 through Campaign for Liberty) and booths. More than 1,000 people here are Paul supporters.

By: David Weigel
Read More: http://www.slate.com/id/2284686/

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Posted by Anthony on Feb 12 2011. Filed under Breaking News, Headlines, Liberty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry