It caught me by great surprise this morning to learn that Dr. Rand Paul had suspended his campaign. I am truly confused for why Rand decided to end his campaign already. Consider the following:
• He is on the ballot in all 50 states.
• The National Convention is about a race for the delegates, of which after one state Rand has one delegate while others have none.
• There is no clear/presumptive front runner this time around so the race is still wide open. If none of the candidates get 50% of the delegates at the convention it would be a brokered one. That means all the delegates become unbound and can vote for whomever they want. My guess is that liberty lovers, in the manner of Ron Paul’s 2012, would be delegates making their way through the election process and would support Rand more than was required on the first round. Even if this wouldn’t nearly be the 50% needed, Rand could play a sort of kingmaker at the convention.
Here are some educated reasons why I think Rand decided to drop out:
• A prolonged race with Rand in it risks his future as a leader in the GOP because some folks might view him just like his father. See Leon Wolf’s RedState post on precise how he views Rand better now. Many, many polls indicate that young folks are war-weary, want NSA reform, and are more liberal on social issues (if not personally, they are politically). This maybe means the future of the GOP is trending toward Rand’s Republican brand of policy.
• He never received the votes he expected in Iowa. The campaign had a pledge of 10,000 students saying they would go out for Rand and most of those never showed. Instead, they went over to vote for Bernie and his free stuff.
• He’s not even doing well in supposedly libertarianish New Hampshire. My guess is that Bernie is sucking up the votes from peace lovers there. If it were a Clinton vs. Biden race on the Dem side, Rand would have seen better support.
• He now has a Democratic challenger for his Senate seat, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. Perhaps early polls show this race being closer than many of us thought it might be.
I had a great time supporting Rand and I even took a quick trip to Iowa this weekend to get out the vote! I spoke at a caucus on behalf of Rand and was honored to do so. I reminded the Iowans that they ought not listen to the media to determine who is electable. They are the people who tell America which candidates are electable. Having made a number of calls and talking to many Iowans I learned that a lot of them actually liked Rand, but they were worried about Trump. This is one of the fundamental problems with the first past the vote system. My own sense is that Rand could have seen more support under a different voting system, like this one. The alternative vote (also called ranked voting) system allows us Average Joes and Janes to select our preferred candidate to begin with. If that candidate doesn’t do well, then our support goes to our second selection. Under this system Rand would have gotten more first place votes, and the anti-Trump votes would have been the second preferred candidate (Cruz or Trump).
I am not sure whom I will support at this point. Cruz has already made a move to attract the liberty vote by attacking Rubio’s foreign policy. Even before moving closer to Rand’s view, Cruz was already the closest on policy to Rand. But he comes across as condescending and annoying, and his campaign has played a couple dirty tricks in Iowa. Rubio, on the other hand, is an eloquent speaker and inspiring to people. His problem is that he is partial to the establishment and big government spending projects.
Feel free to start persuading me toward your preferred candidate, but know that I won’t have the same level of enthusiasm as I have had for Rand. Rand is one of the few politicians out there that I align with on 98% of issues and I haven’t been more excited for a candidate in my 28 years of life. Thanks for the fun run, Rand!
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