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Nothing screams Im a libertarian like a creepy, cultish, rhyming campaign slogan, dont you think? Something like Defeat the Washington machine. Unleash the American dream, Sen. Rand Pauls new motto (as leaked to Politico), teasing the kickoff to his 2016 presidential campaign?

Cant you imagine glassy-eyed, libertarian-minded Millennials chanting that slogan, maybe wearing some kind of military-style yet vaguely hipsterish campaign uniform?

No, actually, I cant either. Rhyming slogans dont say libertarian to me; Pauls tweet seemed weirdly authoritarian, in fact. But on the eve of Pauls announcing a 2016 presidential run, nothing makes sense about his campaign branding, or the way the media simply accept it, in all its messy, massively self-contradictory glory.

So I write to give my colleagues one simple tip to improve their Paul campaign coverage: Stop calling him a libertarian. Stop it right now.

And a related piece of advice: Stop reflexively insisting hes going to appeal to supposedly libertarian-minded Millennials. Because hes not.

Robert Draper didnt create the Paul charade, but he seriously helped it along, in his New York Times magazine piece on the nations supposed libertarian moment last August. He saw the moment well-captured by Rand Paul, who was to the libertarian movement what Pearl Jam is to rock, Draper wrote, explaining.On issues including same-sex marriage, surveillance and military intervention, his positions more closely mirror those of young voters than those of the G.O.P. establishment.

Many good reporters and analysts have spent many long hours debunking Drapers assumptions. (I tried it here.) On issues of womens rights and LGBT rights, immigration, drug legalization and even military spending and intervention, Paul has either always been or has become a fairly standard issue Republicans.

Think Progresss Judd Legum runs exhaustively through the record, but here are a few highlights. First of all, hes staunchly anti-choice, supporting the Life begins at Conception Act and pretty much every other piece of anti-abortion legislation thats come before him. Hes got a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee. To be fair, other libertarians have gotten away with being pro-liberty for everyone but women. Pauls father Ron, who was somewhat more genuinely libertarian than his son, likewise supported draconian anti-abortion laws.

And while Paul used to sound vaguely live-and-let-live when it came to gay marriage, he has toughened his rhetoric. He now says the idea of a marriage between a same-sex couples offends myself and a lot of people, and hes joined Rick Santorum in suggesting it may lead to interspecies intimacy. We learned last week that he doesnt even believe in the concept of gay rights, telling an interviewer in 2013, I really dont believe in rights based on your behavior.

Where libertarians tend to support liberalizing immigration laws and promoting more open borders, Paul has voted against any liberalization of U.S. immigration policy. He even cosponsored a bill with Sen. David Vitter to end citizenship rights for the children of foreigners born on this soil, when he first got to the Senate. Citizenship is a privilege, Paul said at the time, and only those who respect our immigration laws should be allowed to enjoy its benefits.

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Stop calling this man a libertarian: What 2016 campaign journos miss about Rand Paul

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When the presidential buzz began building around Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.

But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement Tuesday, Paul is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that its unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.

Hes going to get his moment in the sun, said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Pauls insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party.

There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy, and courting the religious right.

Where he once pledged to sharply cut the Pentagons budget, for instance, Paul late last month proposed a $190billion increase over the next two years albeit one that would be paid for by cutting foreign aid and other government programs. His tour following the announcement of his candidacy will include an event at Patriots Point in South Carolinas Charleston Harbor, with the World War II-era aircraft carrier USS Yorktown as a backdrop.

[What Rand Pauls defense spending proposal tells us about his 2016 strategy]

The haziness over Pauls positions increased last week with his conspicuous silence on controversies in the realms of both national security and the cultural fronts.

Nearly all of his potential rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination have been vocal in their support for Indianas new religious liberties law, which critics say would allow discrimination against gays. And the Republican response to President Obamas nuclear negotiations with Iran has been widespread skepticism.

In both instances, Pauls office said he was vacationing with his family and would not comment.

What Paul says Tuesday and in several stops in the following days will be closely watched by a handful of disparate constituencies into which he has tried to make inroads over the past year, including Silicon Valley executives drawn to his libertarian ways and more traditional Republican business leaders who are wary of them. Attracted to his promise of expanding the GOP electorate, they have met with Paul, but many remain unsure of his electability, as well as his views.

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Rand Paul seems to stray from libertarian roots as he courts GOP base

KAREN TUMULTY AND ROBERT COSTA

Last updatedMon Apr 06 05:14:03 UTC 2015

LAURA BUCKMAN / Reuters

HIPSTER SENATOR?: Rand Paul talks during a session at the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive, film and music conference in Austin, Texas, last month.

When the US presidential buzz began building around Senator Rand Paul a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.

But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement on Tuesday (local time), the Kentucky Republican is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that it's unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.

"He's going to get his moment in the sun," said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Paul's insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. "What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party."

KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters

RIGHT-WING: Rand Paul speaks the CPAC conference in Maryland in February.

There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy and courting the religious right.

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US Presidential candidate Rand Paul veers from libertarian positions