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Ron Paul See other Ron Paul Articles Title: With the Iran deal headed for victory, some libertarians see a missed opportunity for Rand Paul Opportunity lost? Thursday's unsuccessful Senate vote to start debate on disapproval of the Iran nuclear deal marked the end of a months-long partisan war -- or at least the end of its first stage. While some Republican donors brainstorm ways to make Democrats suffer for backing the deal, they succeeded in building unanimous opposition in their own party. And their biggest coup might have been Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the closest thing the modern GOP has to a foreign policy dove. Paul had co-signed Sen. Tom Cotton's (R-Ark.) hectoring pre-deal letter to Iran's mullahs, and opposed the deal almost as soon as he was able. That left some supporters of his father, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, wondering what might have been. The elder Paul, from a perch at his eponymous think tank, backed the nuclear deal and compared it to detente with the Soviet Union. "The tone has been changed," he told NewsMax in July. "It's to our benefit; it's to the benefit of world peace." The paleoconservative scribes of LewRockwell.com penned column after column praising the deal and President Barack Obama's bucking of "the Israel Lobby." But they could not find an ally in the GOP field. “What does [Rand] Paul imagine pro-peace voters put at the top of their agenda at this point?” asked Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of the libertarian news site AntiWar.com. “The Iran deal is certainly the most high profile foreign policy issue right now.” Opposing the deal was, and is, an ultra-minority position for Republican voters. Then again, so is support for Rand Paul. In the last CNN/ORC poll before the Senate vote, a poll that reflected dipping overall support, 16 percent of Republicans – and 21 percent of “conservatives” – favored the deal. A Pew Research poll, which found an even bigger swing against the deal, put the Republican support at 6 percent. Rand Paul's libertarian critics see a missed opportunity in those numbers. The decline happened in the hothouse of a partisan debate, one in which anti-deal groups like the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America lit up TV screens, and which no current elected Republican endorsed an agreement with Iran. Political scientists have found, for years, that polarization happens at the supply end and the demand end. If no one from an opposing party endorses an idea, that idea -- regardless of its origins -- is seen as partisan. The Affordable Care Act was the ultimate example of this, and the Iran deal could find a place in the books. No one can say how the debate would have changed if a high-profile presidential candidate had endorsed the deal. And Paul was bludgeoned anyway for insufficient hatred of the deal. After he signed the Cotton letter, he told skeptical libertarian audiences that he did so to help the Obama administration "negotiate from a position of strength." Last month, he told The Washington Post that -- if he won the presidency -- he would see whether Iran was actually abiding by the deal before he make any call about tearing it up. Modest answers like those became fodder for a FSPA TV ad, in which a family sits down to dinner and is vaporized by Iran's bomb, because Rand Paul did not "stand up to Iran." Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 3.
#1. To: Ada (#0)
If ya don't hate what they hate and in sufficient measure, don't expect compassion or understanding of a contrary viewpoint however sensitively nuanced in their favor. Expect a swift backhand to the chops. Yarmulke boy will get just what he deserves.
I don't know what Rand Paul is other than just a typical republican politician. Ron Paul supporters put Rand in the Senate. However, now that he is in the senate, he doesn't need us to get reelected to the senate.
As the highest ranking "libertarian" officeholder in the nation, Paul represents what libertarianism has come to on these shores. Stick a fork in it.
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