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Rand Paul - honest shift or calculated con?

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haymarket

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Good article here

Shifting his views, Rand Paul seeks broader appeal

here is part of it to give you the general gist

Sen. Rand Paul wanted to eliminate aid to Israel. Now he doesn’t. He wanted to scrap the Medicare system. Now he’s not sure. He didn’t like the idea of a border fence — it was expensive, and it reminded him of the Berlin Wall. Now he wants two fences, one behind the other. And what about same-sex marriage? Paul’s position — such marriages are morally wrong, but Republicans should stop obsessing about them — seems so muddled that an Iowa pastor recently confronted him in frustration.
“With all due respect, that sounds very retreatist of you,” minister Michael Demastus said he told Paul (R-Ky.) after the senator explained his position during a stop in Des Moines.
Paul has built a reputation as a libertarian ideologue, a Washington outsider guided by a rigid devotion to principle. But his policy vision is, in fact, a work in progress. While he has maintained his core support for cutting spending and protecting Americans’ privacy rights, Paul has shaded, changed or dropped some of the ideas that he espoused as a tea party candidate and in his confrontational early days as a senator. As the prospect of a 2016 presidential bid looms larger, Paul is making it clear that he did not come to Washington to be a purist like his father, former congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.). He came to be a politician, like everybody else.
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This brings up the question if Paul is acting out of sincere conviction or is this all some elaborate con to get the nomination in 2016 and win the election pretending to shift away from libertarianism while the libertarians know the entire time it is done with a wink and once he gets in office its the full libertarian agenda with nothing off the table from extremism land?
 
Pretty sure nothing about Rand Paul qualifies as libertarian. He wasn't all that libertarian even before he started selling out to the far-right Tea Party types. At best he's a paleocon like his father, but these days he is trending dangerously close to neocon.
 
Most of the candidates adjust their values for votes, that is a given. Paul is probably not much different, although I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't hold the same convictions from years ago, and we do learn as we go, do we not?
Out of all the presidential hopefuls, he strikes me as the most sincere. I could be wrong.
 
haymarket said:
This brings up the question if Paul is acting out of sincere conviction or is this all some elaborate con to get the nomination in 2016 and win the election pretending to shift away from libertarianism while the libertarians know the entire time it is done with a wink and once he gets in office its the full libertarian agenda with nothing off the table from extremism land?
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Politicians tend to speak most radically when running for office and become more 'moderate' once in office.
 
TeleKat said:
Pretty sure nothing about Rand Paul qualifies as libertarian. He wasn't all that libertarian even before he started selling out to the far-right Tea Party types. At best he's a paleocon like his father, but these days he is trending dangerously close to neocon.
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the peanut gallery offering an opinion. yeah!
 
My advice. Always ignore what politicians say. Worry about what they do,
 
Geoist said:
Politicians tend to speak most radically when running for office and become more 'moderate' once in office.
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I strongly suspect the very opposite would be true of Rand Paul. And we are already seeing evidence of that if you go back and read the OP article.
 
haymarket said:
I strongly suspect the very opposite would be true of Rand Paul. And we are already seeing evidence of that if you go back and read the OP article.
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I read most of it. He is trying to appeal to the GOP base. That is typical of the average candidate.

Even if he were to become more "libertarian" once president, Congress would immediately put that in check.
 
haymarket said:
Good article here

Shifting his views, Rand Paul seeks broader appeal

here is part of it to give you the general gist




This brings up the question if Paul is acting out of sincere conviction or is this all some elaborate con to get the nomination in 2016 and win the election pretending to shift away from libertarianism while the libertarians know the entire time it is done with a wink and once he gets in office its the full libertarian agenda with nothing off the table from extremism land?
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A politician who changes his mind. And?

He isn't going to get the GOP nomination in 2016 anyway.
 
Geoist said:
I read most of it. If anything he is taking more mainstream positions over his past "radical" positions. Even if he were to become more "libertarian" once president, Congress would immediately put that in check.
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That's the thing. What a President wants to do when elected doesn't always come to fruition. He/she can do things assuming Congress agrees.
 
Geoist said:
I read most of it. He is trying to appeal to the GOP base. That is typical of the average candidate.

Even if he were to become more "libertarian" once president, Congress would immediately put that in check.
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I also strongly suspect that if the nation would elect Paul to the White Office many many GOP congressmen would go along for the ride and approve much of what he proposed. So I am not as optimistic as you are on that front.
 
tres borrachos said:
The less they do, the better.
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Do you think the state government does too much? Does The city government do too much?

We do not elect our government representatives in order for them to be useless place holders, some of us have an expectation that the purpouse of government is to govern, and that may require our elected officials actually doing work.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Do you think the state government does too much? Does The city government do too much?

We do not elect our government representatives in order for them to be useless place holders, some of us have an expectation that the purpouse of government is to govern, and that may require our elected officials actually doing work.
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I wasn't talking about state or city governments. The discussion was about Rand Paul potentially being President of the United States, not a state or city official.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
So the context is "the less presidents do as president, the better off this country is"?
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I wasn't just talking about the President, hence my use of the word "Congress".

This is off topic, do you have any thoughts on the OP and Rand Paul?
 
tres borrachos said:
I wasn't just talking about the President, hence my use of the word "Congress".

This is off topic, do you have any thoughts on the OP and Rand Paul?
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I have no problems with politicians changing their position if they are able to explain what made them change their position.

It is politicians who fail to actively govern that bother me.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I have no problems with politicians changing their position if they are able to explain what made them change their position.

It is politicians who fail to actively govern that bother me.
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That depends for me (the second part) on what they're doing when they actually govern. Sometimes they get into malfeasance that I wish they wouldn't. As to the first part, I agree. Change your mind - we all do it. Just tell me why you're doing it and what you think now, and then I can decide on where you stand today.
 
haymarket said:
I also strongly suspect that if the nation would elect Paul to the White Office many many GOP congressmen would go along for the ride and approve much of what he proposed. So I am not as optimistic as you are on that front.
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Many Republicans would, I agree. But I think Dems and moderate Republicans would keep him in check. Keep in mind, also, whatever party wins the presidency tends to lose out in the congressional elecions.

But I don't think he will come close to winning the presidency, at least this election cycle.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I have no problems with politicians changing their position if they are able to explain what made them change their position.
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Yes. Though I do understand the suspicion over changing one's position during election season.

If a position is changed for the right reason it shows maturity and a willingness to break away from dogmatic views.
 
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