It’s Friday and the King Dude is on the air. Normally, Mike
Church uses his early morning Sirius program as a platform to bash
the faux conservatives he calls “Decepticons.” But this time he is
criticizing Rand Paul, the Tea Party senator from Kentucky. Church
pushes back against a friendly listener who disagrees.
“If the goal is the U.S. Constitution as it was enforced, kind
of, during the Jefferson Administration or during the Pierce
Administration or during the Tyler or Cleveland Administrations,
pray tell, sir, how do we get there if we cannot keep people like
Rand on the straight and narrow?” Church
asks.
The night before, Rand Paul went on television and endorsed Mitt
Romney for president. “My first choice had always been my father,”
Ron Paul’s son told Sean Hannity. “I campaigned for him when I was
11 years old. He’s still my first pick. But now that the nominating
process is over, tonight I’m happy to announce that I’m going to be
supporting Gov. Mitt Romney.”
“My dad has a legion of young followers who are on the
Internet,” the younger Paul said. And many of those young followers
were hopping mad. “Rand is dead to me,” one wrote at the popular
website
Daily Paul, a clearinghouse of information about the
libertarian Republican’s campaign. “He never should have done
this.” The opening comment on a thread discussing the Romney
endorsement said, “Sorry Rand, but you CANNOT make a deal with the
devil.” A poster on Alex Jones’ website called
the senator a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
The Atlantic’s John Hudson
dubbed it the libertarian equivalent of the folk purists’
reaction to Bob Dylan going
electric. Some of these modern-day Pete Seegers
directed their ire toward Ron Paul himself: “We will never vote
for Romney or your flimsy son.”
These are the growing pains of a young movement, but the
dissension is about more than an endorsement. After the high-water
mark of Iowa and New Hampshire, Ron Paul’s campaign strategy
focused on integrating his supporters in the Republican Party. That
meant storming state conventions, capturing delegates, and winning
party leadership positions.
In states as diverse as Alaska and Maine, Louisiana and
Minnesota, Iowa and Nevada, the strategy paid dividends. Ron Paul
supporters now chair state parties and hold seats on the Republican
National Committee. Some are winning GOP primaries and have a
decent chance to prevail in November.
But there is a limit to how much you can accomplish within the
GOP if other party members doubt your Republicanism. The Paul
supporters must reach beyond their own base to maintain positions
of influence. Ron Paul struggled in closed primaries, where he
needed the votes of party regulars.
Rand Paul’s endorsement of Romney is predicated on the idea that
working within the party will sometimes require reciprocal party
loyalty. The risk is obviously that Paulite votes for Romney will
end up ratifying an agenda they abhor, from preventive wars to
Obamacare lite. The potential reward is that Rand Paul goes further
electorally than his father and helps some of their movement’s
goals become the law of the land.
Yet some of these supporters don’t want anything to do with any
Republican not named Ron Paul — including Rand. They signed up to
elect the Texas congressman president and only help the man who
cured their
apathy. They are no more interested in electing Romney than
reelecting Barack Obama.
Other Ron Paul Republicans embrace their new role in the party,
helping to elect candidates like Rand Paul and House candidate
Thomas Massie in Kentucky, a state where the elder Paul won just 13
percent of the vote. They are even willing to work with more
mainstream conservatives to achieve spending cuts and push the
party rightward.
Rand can certainly live without some of his father’s supporters,
such as those attributing the Romney endorsement to the malign
influence of the Bilderbergers. His ability to influence the party
will be enhanced by turning off the 9/11 truthers. But he does need
to keep the majority of his father’s movement together. What
journalist Matthew Continetti
called “Rand Paul’s balancing act” is being tested as never
before.
“[Rand Paul] is now a lot more difficult to dismiss as some
ideological Libertarian crank. That’s a good thing. Let’s
look for the glass half full,” Mike Church concludes. “Just know,
Rand, I’m watching you.”
