Politics

Rand Paul: more libertarian GOP can win blue states

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
W. James Antle III Managing Editor
Font Size:

A more libertarian Republican Party could win in the blue states. That’s the argument Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul has been road-testing, most recently in his visit last week to California.

“[T]he way we’re going to compete is by running people for office who can appreciate some issues that attract young people and independents: civil liberties, as well as a less aggressive foreign policy, not putting people in jail for marijuana, a much more tolerant type of point of view,” Paul told Wired during his trip to Silicon Valley.

“If you have Republican candidates like that,” Paul continued, “then I think all of a sudden you’d find California back in play.”

Paul repeated some of these themes to a more familiar GOP audience at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley. “I think to win in California we need to tell people that we’re the party that wants to do nation-building at home, not always overseas,” he said to applause.

The Kentuckian was elected during a Republican wave in 2010, in a state where Barack Obama won less than 38 percent of the vote last year. Paul has since been viewed as a tea party leader, even titling a post-election book “The Tea Party Goes to Washington.”

Paul’s libertarian pitch is an attempt to show he can reach out beyond the traditional Republican base without alienating the conservatives who have been his strongest supporters.

Those close to the senator believe it is important that he can demonstrate general election appeal as well as his conservative credentials if he runs for president in the 2016 GOP primaries.

In 2012, Republican primary voters were frequently split over electability versus ideology. In Ohio, for example, exit polls showed Mitt Romney dominating the field with 52 percent of GOP voters looking for someone who could beat Obama in November to Rick Santorum’s 27 percent.

Santorum won 51 percent of those who said they were looking for a true conservative. Romney finished last among these voters with 13 percent, but won the Buckeye State’s pivotal primary.

In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Ron Paul, the Kentucky senator’s father, won the “true conservative” vote but Romney carried the pluralities seeking to beat Obama.

At the same time, the younger Paul cannot be so libertarian that he repels social conservatives — evangelicals voted against his father in large numbers throughout the South. Neither can he allow his talk of inclusion to dilute his conservative brand.

It’s a delicate dance that saw Paul actually downplay his libertarianism when talking to evangelicals in Iowa.

“I’m not advocating everyone go out and run around with no clothes on and smoke pot,” The Washington Post quoted Paul as saying. “I’m not a libertarian. I’m a libertarian Republican. I’m a constitutional conservative.”

Some are skeptical Paul can thread the needle. “It’s far more likely that if Paul continues to send significantly different messages to different audiences, he will end up alienating all his possible supporters,” Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian Reason magazine, argued in The Daily Beast.

Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote that Paul “claims his civil libertarian positions don’t weaken his commitment to national security, but we’ve yet to see him assert a muscular position on any foreign policy issue, even when it comes to Iran.”

Rubin also asked of Paul, “Is he going to vote for reasonable immigration reform or insist on some unattainable bill so he can vote no and stick with anti-immigrant right-wingers?”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is another potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate who touts minority outreach while boasting a conservative voting record. Rubio is Hispanic, from a swing state that has voted against the GOP in the last two presidential elections and a leader on the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform team.

Paul has been more tentative on immigration, but  has won high marks from conservative groups like Heritage Action, the American Conservative Union and Club for Growth while at the same time criticizing drones and current sentencing practices for nonviolent drug offenders.

The senator is trying to convince Republicans that his is a winning mix everywhere.

“I don’t think we need to dilute our message of low taxes, less regulation and balanced budgets to win in California,” Paul said at the Reagan Library.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel