Too early for second thoughts, second guesses on the whole Rand Paul thing? Apparently not. My sense of it now is that, tired of seeing republicans with no clue it seems of how to sell a message, of how to get the media to work for you - it was nice to see one act as if it wasn't 1950 and he was struggling to figure out this new fangled television thing - or something like that. I know that I didn't care at all really what Paul was talking about - I have opinions on Obama's drone love that only loosely intersect with Rand's thoughts thereof - in the end I just liked the feeling of a conservative operating in a way that seemed to suggest he wasn't some orphaned waif wondering in from a world where the internet didn't exist - or something like that.
Anyway, this is the short version of the problem for the GOP the way I see it - right wing 'extremism' plays much more negatively as a function of media driven narrative than left wing extremism, and that's not just because of media bias, although of course media bias plays a significant part - and as a consequence the whole conservative brand gets tainted. This probably explains why Asians, who should be a fairly loyal right wing block, avoid the GOP in numbers that mirror Hispanic antipathy. And it was along these lines that the Paul stunt seemed like such a winning play at first - expose liberal hypocrisy, maybe embarrass Obama, express a conservative or quasi conservative view point without sounding like you're either an idiot, a fascist, or some out of sync throwback to a bygone era, and then do all this in a way that makes it seem like you actually get how the media works - looks like a win.
On reflection though, a few brambles stick out - as in, by and large I don't really agree with what Paul was talking about, although there are certainly concerns of his that I could see myself sharing if it weren't for much bigger problems and issues crowding the stage - and then: was this simply a savvy self promoting media move on his part, or is he actually so concerned about the presidency devolving into a dystopian tyranny that he felt he had no choice but to act boldly? And if it's the latter, what happens if the only upshot of it is that he riles up the wacko wing of the party that was wont to follow his nutbar father around like he was L Ron Hubbard and they were all much uglier versions of Tom Cruise - cause that's not gonna be a good thing for the GOP.
Reality is Obama and Holder want to avoid constitutional specifics on domestic drone use not because they're proto autocrats looking to piss Hellfires down on Tea Partying malcontents but rather because they don't wanna talk about the subject of drones at all - it's a swamp full of questions they don't have answers to, at least not good ones, and last thing they need is for people, especially their own people, to start asking those questions because the script they have playing in their heads really doesn't allow for that kind of honest integrity - these people see themselves as revolutionaries after all and for such grand schemers truth is often more of an enemy than a friend - uber liberals of Obama's ilk need the much smaller American military implied by a heavy focus on drones, special ops and 'leading from behind', not only because it comports with their naive and vain notions of power and idealist conceptions of right and wrong - they also just as importantly if not more so flat out need the bloody money a cut in military outlays would give them because, to paraphrase Maggie Thatcher, when it comes to socialism, access to other peoples cash is key to keeping the egalitarian illusion viable.
Now, if Paul had incorporated some of that kind of talk into his speech, I'd be much more sanguine about whether or not what he did was a net benefit from a conservative point of view. Trouble for Rand Paul is that, even though he's made concerted effort to distance himself from his father, he's not gonna be able to shake that baggage entirely - and when left wing drool heads like Bill Maher are seen praising the anti-drone 'Rand Stand', that's gonna remind a lot of people that Paul senior is probably left of Obama when it comes to views on the American military - and at that point you're approaching Michael Moore territory.
