ARLINGTON, Va.– Rand Paul supporters packed into O’Sullivan’s Pub Tuesday to celebrate the Kentucky GOP senator’s entrance into the 2016 presidential race.
Liberty Karaoke started in Arlington for the benefit of libertarian Republican candidates and their supporters. According to Arlnow.com, it has spread to over 60 sites nationwide.
More than 250 people RSVP’ed for Tuesday night’s event to knock back a few brews, belt out some tunes and delight in Paul’s candidacy.
“Rand Paul takes Bitcoin for donations. You’re damn right he does!” proclaimed one young karaoke performer after singing Lee Greenwood’s “Proud To Be an American.” The young libertarian crowd chanted back, “USA, USA, USA!”
“Basically, this is a bunch of Rand Paul supporters who wanted to come out and show support for the good doctor,” Brian Walsh, an intern at an Arlington-based libertarian-leaning organization, told The Daily Caller.
“They wanted to make sure that we do it in the most vocal way possible,” he added. “We thought karaoke. We’ve done it before. We’ve held money bombs for his father and we wanted to make sure that we can show up for his son and we believe in Doctor Paul.”
Walsh said he believes Paul’s message to supporters “resonated with people across the spectrum. I think it shows how we can appeal to the youth and to Democrats and independents and we can siphon away their votes and bring it into the Republican [Party].”
Richard Morrison, a staffer at a D.C. libertarian-leaning think tank said he believes there are “exciting possibilities with Rand Paul running for president.”
“From my perspective as a libertarian, he’s one of the most libertarian Republican candidates around and I think that’s a good thing,” Morrison told TheDC. “I think it’s a good thing for the Republican Party and I think it’s a good thing for the country. I think the future of the Republican Party will be in a more libertarian direction.”
Walsh and Morrison both said they were unconcerned about criticism that Paul straddles the Republican and libertarian line when it comes to his foreign policy and national defense.
“His views are consistently in line with Ronald Reagan’s and Ronald Reagan even said that libertarianism is the root of the Republican Party,” Walsh told TheDC, “and that the Republican Party should not forget that.”