Senator Chuck Schumer earned some chuckles among Democrats when he said today that the decision by House Republicans to suspend any limits on the national debt for three months was evidence that “The president stared down the Republicans. They blinked.” The GOP chose to remove, at least for a time, any threat of a government shutdown because they knew they were locked in an unequal struggle with the White House and the Democratic majority in the Senate. By backing down on the debt ceiling deadline, the House leadership decided they’d be better off avoiding a confrontation that would lead to them being blamed for damaging the economy while probably not getting the spending cuts and entitlement reform that they rightly know the country needs. But there is at least one Republican in the Senate who thinks Schumer is right and who hopes to gain from making clear his disagreement.
Senator Rand Paul made it clear earlier this week that he disapproves of Speaker Boehner’s embrace of Fabian tactics. Instead of trying another Alamo-like last stand such as the GOP’s ill-fated fiscal cliff tactics, Boehner is hoping the GOP will be better off retreating now and living to fight another day. But Paul isn’t the only Republican unhappy about the decision. The 33 Republicans who defected during the House vote on the debt legislation made it obvious that a substantial portion of the party is unwilling to accept anything but a policy of all-out war all the time against the president’s refusal to deal with the debt crisis. Boehner has his hands full in a fractious caucus, but the impulse to rebel against a more cautious approach to their political problem is not limited to the House. Paul’s statement makes it clear that he is auditioning for the role of the party’s insurgent leader.
Paul’s desire to run for president in 2016 is not exactly a secret. In addition to assuming a far more strident public role than in his first two years in the Senate, Paul even went to Israel this month in a not terribly persuasive effort to convince the pro-Israel community that he is evolving from an isolationist foreign policy worldview. But by criticizing Boehner in this manner, Paul is setting himself up as being far more than just another frustrated Tea Party critic of the party leadership.
In doing so, he is also picking a fight with the one Republican who is most identified with the cause of entitlement reform: Representative Paul Ryan. Democrats have spent the last two years demonizing Ryan for his visionary proposals challenging the status quo on Medicare. As the intellectual leader of the party, Ryan has been doing much of the heavy lifting for the party articulating the position that unless Washington changes the way it does business, that vital program as well as other government benefits won’t survive the coming fiscal meltdown. By backing Boehner’s compromise measure, Ryan is showing once again that he’s a team player who, though determined to promote reform ideas, isn’t interested in grandstanding or showing up Boehner or Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Yet if Ryan is, as many of his admirers hope, interested in running for president in 2016, this leaves him vulnerable to future attacks from Paul as a compromiser rather than a true Tea Party believer.
Paul’s increasing visibility makes it look as if he intends to spend the next three years auditioning for the role of leader of a far bigger faction of the party than his extremist libertarian father Ron ever had at his back. But part of that will entail a program of guerrilla warfare against Republicans like Ryan who are just as interested in stopping Obama’s liberal program but aren’t willing to throw his party’s leadership under the bus to do it. Some in the GOP may still dismiss his chances in 2016 but bashing Boehner’s decision, taking a shot at New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and being among the most strident critics of Hillary Clinton at the Senate Benghazi hearing today are the kind of things that will win him fans among the GOP base. Paul’s isolationist foreign policy views and loner mentality still mark him as an outlier in his party, as well as someone who might have trouble winning a general election. But his bid to be the party’s leading insurgent is laying the groundwork for what may be a formidable presidential bid.
And here we go with the GOP's quadrennial internecine warfare, which seemingly inevitably leads to the moderates getting their milquetoast candidate nominated, then blaming the conservatives for losing to the Dem leftist. n nHeaven forbid the party actually try another conservative able to articulate an agenda based on freedom, liberty, and a federal government (nominally) staying within its constitutionally-mandated limits. After all, it's not like we'd ever win a Reagan landslide or two that way.
I'll be honest with you; I like what I have been seeing and hearing from Rand Paul. I think you have to take him at his word that he is Pro-Israel. I also don't think he is the isolationist his father is. I think you have to take him at his word on that too. It actually wouldn't be the first time a son split with his isolationist father in the history of our country. JFK was certainly no isolationist while his father was. It is unfair to tar the man because of the sins of the father. He might or might not have a hard time winning the general election. I think, though, that the electability meme has doomed Republicans more often than not. So to hell with that argument in my mind. True, you can't beat somebody with nobody. The question is; can Rand Paul turn himself into somebody? So far, so good.
What it boils down to is whether Rand is the man who can put Obama's genie back in the bottle in 2016. If you think he is then as an American your choice is simple.
if you have the faintest illusion that Paul is at all interested in Israel's welfare, you need to do the reading before you wake up with your wallet gone, your butt sore and not enough Kwell to kill all the crabs.
The US is like a morbidly obese person listening to two different people: on the left, Obama and the Democrats are offering free cake for as long as it lasts. On the right, the doctor is saying "you need to lose weight or you'll die of a heart attack." Unsurprisingly, the chump sides with Obama and the bakery in telling the doctor to STFU. Does that constitute "staring down"? To a twinkie like Chuck Schumer, probably…
the real hero will be whoever figures out how to stop the regulatory avalanche. n nthe markets really seem ok with this pause with conditions. nI need more than three months to escape my real estate nightmare. That 2011 debt ceiling showdown stopped the housing market for three months. Try it again, and confidence in all markets will plummet. n nthe endless presidential campaign only fuels the Imperial Presidency.
Sounds like the plan is for us to just retreat and retreat until we fall off a cliff.
It seems to me the House Republicans are getting their ducks in the order they want. Cajoling the Senate into participating in the budget process seems smart politics. With every tactical retreat the GOP is trading a few months of the status quo for advantages to themselves in the next round of negotiations. If it translates into success in the future it will be worth the delay. The Democrats can gloat now over their "victories" and Rand Paul can keep playing into their hands all by himself.
What I have learned from my experience with politicians is that nothing is at it seems. What makes Tobin so sure that Rand's moves are not choreographed so that rRepublicans can play "good" cop and "bad" cop?
because the Republicans are too hapless to carry out such a sophisticated plan. this is getting to be the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Keep threatening to screw with the debt ceiling, GOPers… n n“The GOP is rebranding itself from a party that accidentally blows up the world economy to one that purposely blows up the world economy.” n– @LOLG0P
I agree with bcub, above. I was not a Rand Paul fan, and I dislike his father intensely. but he seemed to be the only person who stood up to Hillary Clinton today and told her she should have been fired–thus neatly dissing her AND her spineless boss. n nwe'll have to wait and see about the Israel thing. I'm willing to give him some benefit of the doubt. and I think he could conceivably be the sort of "personality" that might actually be able to win… n nbut heaven help us if Paul Ryan comes anywhere near the GOP ticket in 2016! don't you understand we'd have President Romney now if Marco Rubio had been VP? Ryan may be a swell guy but he doesn't have the right stuff to be in the WH. he doesn't have "it." n n is the GOP really going to squander the whole thing and let Hillary continue Obama's policies for another 8 years? nice country we had here for awhile…
“Ryan is showing once again that heu2019s a team player who, though determined to promote reform ideas, isnu2019t interested in grandstanding or showing up Boehner or Majority Leader Eric Cantor.”r nr nAnd he voted for Cliff surrender, TARP, and stimulus too. Ryan is showing once again that heu2019s the kind of spineless twit that has made the GOP into the PUP (Pointless Useless Party.)
Rand Paul is not afraid to stand up and speak his mind. He did just so when questioning Hillary Clinton and in going against Boehner. Republicans are known for their cowering before the MSM.It's time there were some new outspoken Republicans. I was very disappointed in Paul Ryan during the election because he too seemed to stay out of public view and didn't speak up when BHO was criticizing the Romney team. Please, I don't want to see Gingrich, Palin, etc. We need some new blood.
How does that admonition go? The sins of the father ought not to be visited upon the son? Rand is beginning to look like a serious and interesting guy; something which, I"m sure, he's deliberately trying to do. Very much unlike the father who, as many of us here, I detest. We should keep an open mind, but not shrink from pushing and testing him on Israel and other foreign policy/defense policies.
Seriously, I don't understand Jonathan Tobin's ongoing crusade against Rand Paul. Did he run over his dog or something? I understand being suspicious of him given his father's anti-semitism or at least associations with anti-semites and truthers and other people who believe that Jews and the Trilateral Commission run the world. But I've seen none of this from Rand Paul and given that he seems to want to associate more with the Israeli right (like Bibi and Naftali Bennett) than the Israeli left, he deserves the benefit of the doubt for now.