In the last 24 hours, there has been mounting speculation about
Rand Paul, the freshman Republican senator from Kentucky, running
for president in 2012. A writer at Salon
says he has the potential to be the Pat Buchanan of this
election cycle. The Buchanan of 1996, that is. Paul himself has
said, “The only decision I’ve made is I won’t run against my
dad.”
The case against Paul running is obvious. The voters in Kentucky
just elected him in November. Like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal,
and a host of other recently elected promising Republicans, he
should wait until he has accomplished more. For those of us who
think a successful Senator Paul could do better than the Buchanan
‘96 campaign, a concern might also be that becoming a perennial
candidate by running too early could undermine that. It could also
hurt his support at home in Kentucky if voters there think he’s
only using their Senate seat as a stepping stone to his own
ambitions.
The case for Paul running is that he’s simply a better
politician than his father and would move the ball farther than
either Ron Paul or Gary Johnson could. As a senator, he’d have the
luxury of four years to mend fences with Kentucky voters. Paul
could bring the constitutionalist message to the forefront of the
Republican primary debates without getting sidetracked into
theoretical discussions of libertarianism. And a premature
presidential campaign in 1968 ultimatelty didn’t hurt Ronald
Reagan.
It will be interesting to see how this story develops.
