Rand Paul Attacked For Not Applauding Netanyahu Enough
"Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) host of The Young Turks discusses the twitter exchange between Republican Senator Rand Paul and a Washington reporter, Jennifer Rubin, over his...
By: The Young Turks
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Rand Paul Attacked For Not Applauding Netanyahu Enough - Video
Meet the Man Behind Sen. Rand Paul`s Rise to `Troller-in-Chief`
Vincent Harris is the social media guru to the potential 2016 presidential candidate.
By: news+
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Meet the Man Behind Sen. Rand Paul`s Rise to `Troller-in-Chief` - Video
Rand Paul Not Excited About Netanyahu Speech
Rand Paul showed lackluster enthusiasm after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu #39;s speech to Congress.
By: Liberal America
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Rand Paul Not Excited About Netanyahu Speech - Video
Washington For two Republican senators from the same state, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell could not be more mismatched.
Senator Paul is a man in a hurry, with presidential stars in his eyes after a mere four years of serving Kentucky in Washington. The loquacious libertarian is a darling of young conservatives a relaxed jeans-and-boots kind of guy.
Senator McConnell, after three patient decades in office, has finally reached his dream job of Senate majority leader. A man of few words, hes from the establishment wing of the party. In Washington, he sometimes sports golden, presidential-seal cuff links.
I dont think any state has a more interesting pair of senators and a more influential pair of senators, says Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Kentucky is one place in America where a tea-party firebrand and a Republican from the governance wing amicably meet though it's taken a recognition of mutual interests to make that happen. While their relationship could be dismissed as a political marriage of convenience, analysts say it's an example of how two people with different philosophies can come together once they get to know each other the way members of Congress from different parties used to for much of the 20th century.
Five years ago, Paul and McConnell were on opposite sides of a political battle. But since then, theyve forged a symbiotic relationship that, Paul hopes, will prove particularly useful to him at a critical juncture this weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, Paul will meet with Kentucky GOP leaders, and with a valuable nod of approval from Senator McConnell will ask them to switch from a presidential primary to caucuses. That would enable him to run for both the Senate and the presidency without running afoul of state law that forbids a name from appearing twice on a ballot.
Its a big ask, and questions about the idea abound. Doubtersworry about the logistical heavy lift, participation of voters, and risks to other party priorities at the self-serving request of one man.
Paul has a serious problem with the ballot law, and McConnell is helping him get around that, says Mr. Cross.
After overcoming earlier skepticism, McConnells approval of the idea, makes a lot of difference, says Cross. People were looking to him for leadership and hes provided it, and I think most of them will follow.
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Kentucky's odd couple: the symbiotic friendship of Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell
But he faces a rare challenge. The first-term senator from Kentucky wants to keep his day job as a U.S. senatora gig that's up for re-election in 2016while simultaneously making a run at the White House.
Unfortunately for him, Kentucky law prohibits candidates from appearing on the same ballot twice. So Paul and his allies have devised a plan that would help him circumvent that electoral barrier.
On Saturday the first-term senator will go before the Kentucky Republican Party to propose moving the state's presidential preference vote from the May 2016 primary to a caucus two months earlier in March.
That way his name won't appear twice on the May ballot, and Kentucky's presidential nominating contest could possibly become relevant in the national horse race for delegates with an earlier spot in the primary calendar.
It sounds like a win-win situation, but it's an institutional change that would cost a lot of money, require months of planning and potentially lead to lower voter turnout.
Despite the concerns, interviews with more than half a dozen members of the state party's executive committee, which will hear Paul's pitch on Saturday, suggest that the party is likely to move forward with the idea.
The state's party chairman, Steve Robertson, has already appointed a task force to figure out how a caucus could be held in Kentucky. The executive committee will vote Saturday on the appointment of that team.
Paul has spoken with a vast majority of the 54-member committee about his proposal, and he'll elaborate on many of the arguments he laid out in a letter last month to the committee.
"My request to you is simply to be treated equally compared to other potential candidates for the Presidency," he wrote, noting that others, like Rep. Paul Ryan in 2012, have run for their current seat as well as an office on the presidential ticket at the same time.
When the idea of a caucus was first floated, it was met with skepticism from within Republican circles, according multiple Kentucky GOP sources. But Mitch McConnell, the ultimate ringleader of GOP politics in the state, decided to endorse the plan, essentially providing Paul a green light and creating a game changer in the local debate.
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Rand Paul hopes for a rules change to bolster 2016 bid