"It wasn't even close," says Chicago Tribune
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) won the latest GOP presidential debate, says the Chicago Tribune.
The left-leaning media outlet said Paul “spoke like a thoughtful grown-up” during the Wednesday debate and overshadowed the rest of the Republican field on foreign policy.
“Donald Trump wanted to kick him off the debate stage,” the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass wrote. “Fox News ignored him. CNN limited his time, then called him a loser.”
“But Rand Paul won the Republican presidential debate [and] it wasn’t even close.”
While the other candidates argued like angry children trying to act tough, Paul acted the most mature, he added.
“Paul doesn’t have buzz, but buzz is overrated, as is snark and hair,” Kass pointed out. “Former President George W. Bush had buzz when he plunged foolishly into Iraq and that led to the terror of ISIS.”
“President Barack Obama had buzz, just about the time he drew that ‘red line’ in the sands of Syria, and before the dictator in Libya was toppled.”
The Chicago Tribune also revealed why blue-blood Republicans are viciously attacking Paul.
“What the Republican establishment cannot afford is Paul as their nominee,” Kass said. “That would expose the neocons and the war party, and the security surveillance state, and it might help remind Americans that conservatives once opposed foreign adventures, meaning wars, because wars by definition lead to the aggrandizement of federal power.”
“It is the universal law of political arithmetic that as the government gorges and muscles up, individual liberty fades.”
It was very revealing when Trump, the front-runner, began the debate with an unprovoked attack on Paul, claiming the Kentucky senator “shouldn’t even be on this stage.”
Why did Trump do this? Because the more experienced Paul is the only candidate who can strongly challenge Trump on specific constitutional issues and foreign policy, a fact that’s only going to get worse for Trump later down the campaign trail.