The New Yorker has published an 11,753-word
article on Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and his political
navigations on the way to a 2016 White House run. The tepid,
conclusion-averse nature of Ryan Lizza’s piece—as opposed to more
bold profiles in recent years in the
New York Times Magazine and
The New Republic—is encapsulated in the subhed: “The
Senator has fought to go mainstream with the ideology that he
shares with his father. How far can that strategy take him?”
While the article ends with some late-breaking pessimism on that
question, in the form of quotes from observers doubtful about the
salability of Paul’s positions on foreign policy, criminal justice,
and
abortion, the piece begins by hailing the potential
breakthrough nature of his candidacy:
Like many Republicans speaking before a black audience, Paul
quoted Martin Luther King, Jr., but he also invoked Malcolm X. He
declared, “I support the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights
Act.” If enacted, Paul’s agenda would arguably do more to address
issues that are important to the black community than anything that
other members of his party are currently proposing. […]In some respects, Paul is to Republicans in 2014 what Barack
Obama was to Democrats in 2006: the Party’s most prized fund-raiser
and its most discussed senator, willing to express opinions
unpopular within his party, and capable of energizing younger
voters.
Much of the rest of the article is what you’ve read before about
Rand Paul, only with more detail. Aqua
Buddha makes a comeback, only this time GQ’s unnamed
target of Paul’s collegiate pranking gets named, and quoted (saying
“I would not use that as a specific reason not to vote for him”).
Lizza also provides some important new anecdotal evidence that
Paul’s best college buddy was fond of doing nitrous hits
(whee!).
We hear more about Rand’s interest in campaigning for his
father, but we get some extra sauce about his talent for the job.
Paul’s history of making philosophically-based arguments against
the government prohibiting private-sector discrimination gets a few
more citations (sample bit of 1982 writing: While “eliminating
racial and sexual prejudice” had “noble aspiration,” such laws
“necessarily utilize the ignoble means of coercive force”). And
there is the requisite
people-in-his-world-have-played-the-race-card angle, complete with
references to
Ron Paul’s newsletters,
Jack Hunter’s past, and
Lysander Spooner‘s fanclub. But as indicated by the article’s
lead anecdote of Paul speaking in front of the Urban League, Lizza
seems much less convinced by this critique than New York
Times writers Sam Tanenhaus and Jim Rutenberg were in their
dot-connecting exercise this January.
After the jump, some bits of particular interest to
Reason readers.
* Rand Paul does not enjoy paying taxes, or suffering through
regulations governing what he can’t do with his property. He also
was a Lysander Spooner fan in college.
* His views on criminal justice
have been heavily influenced by Michelle Alexander’s recent drug
war book,
The New Jim Crow, and also by his ongoing engagement with
various African-American communities.
* Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said (in August anyway), that he’d
back Paul if he won the 2016 GOP nomination. Quote: “I’ve seen him
grow and I’ve seen him mature and I’ve seen him become more
centrist. I know that if he were President or a nominee I could
influence him, particularly some of his views and positions on
national security. He trusts me particularly on the military side
of things, so I could easily work with him. It wouldn’t be a
problem.”
* Here’s a single, thin, pre-political-career anecdote about
maybe wanting to legalize drugs, which Paul will likely never
advocate in office:
In 2000, when a caller to “Kentucky Tonight” asked guests what
they thought of a plan to legalize all drugs, release all
nonviolent drug offenders, and use the savings to fix Social
Security, Paul responded, “I would agree.”
* OH MY GOD HE LIKES BARBARA KINGSOLVER:
As with so many aspects of his personal history, Paul approaches
the subject of his intellectual influences as though he were
defusing a bomb. In his book, he wrote about several libertarian
writers he had turned to since high school: Ayn Rand (“one of the
most influential critics of government intervention and champions
of individual free will”), Hayek (” ‘The Road to Serfdom’ is a
must-read for any serious conservative”), and the Mises disciple
Murray Rothbard (“a great influence on my thinking”). In my
conversation with him, he shrugged them off.Ayn Rand was just “one of many authors I like,” he said. “And
it’s, like, ‘Oh, because I believe in Ayn Rand I must be an
atheist, I must believe in everybody needs to be selfish all the
time, and I must believe that Howard Roark is great and Ellsworth
Toohey is evil,’ but she’s one of many authors I’ve read. I like
Barbara Kingsolver, too.”Hayek? “I wouldn’t say I’m like some great Hayek scholar.”
Rothbard? “There are many people I’m sure who are more
schooled.”
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1pCCJ0w
via IFTTT