Rand Paul’s Bad Week
What started out as a good week for Kentucky GOP nominee Rand Paul has quickly deteriorated after a rocky interview on the Rachel Maddow Show where he defended comments made about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul was given plenty of airtime to elaborate his stance, but failed miserably to answer any of Maddow’s question with either a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The following night, Maddow explained there were other topics of Mr. Paul’s candidacy she wanted to discuss, but his inability to clearly articulate his views about this particular subject forced her to keeping on pressing him for a clear answer.
After that disastrous appearance, discussions of his comments spread like wildfire to all the major news channels. It became clear from this one interview that Rand Paul wasn’t well-equipped for the gauntlet of prime-time news.
On Good Morning America clearly annoyed with the incessant focus on this one issue he vented, “When is my honeymoon period?” In the world of politics, there ain’t no thing as a “honeymoon period” unfortunately. Not even the POTUS gets a break. That is the nature of the political beast. And Rand Paul learned this in the worst way possible. In a desperate attempt to put an end to the chatter, he issued this statement.
Like his father, Rand Paul is a firm believer in the liberartarian philosophy of a limited government to ensure complete individualism and a free-market economy. Libertarian’s adhere to this philosophy in almost every political scenario and subsequently take on unpopular positions like abolishing the Department of Education, IRS and Federal Reserve.
And it would make sense based on this definition of libertarianism that Rand Paul objects to Title 2 of the Civil Rights Act, which made it illegal to discriminate customers based on race - it’s a government mandate that reaches into the free-market. It’s exactly the reason Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act. And because Rand Paul aligns himself with libertarianism, questioning his positions is only fair.
