Friday, October 30, 2009

Fear! Fear! Fear the kookiness of Rand Paul!

Feeling the heat that Rand Paul is a real threat to beat him in the Republican primary, establishment pick Trey Grayson has resorted to personal attacks more than six months before the primary.

The move isn’t even a surprise. Being the son of Ron Paul has its downsides: the establishment hates you.

By raising over $1 million in the third quarter, nearly doubling the amount raised by the secretary of state, Grayson knows that young Dr. Paul will be able to get his name out there and be a force to be reckoned with.

Attempting to turn Rand Paul’s asset as an outsider on its head, Grayson earlier this month said, “He’s an outsider. He’s not a Kentuckian. You know, I’m a 5th generation Kentuckian, educated here in the public schools, raising my family here.”

“I’m a 5th generation Kentuckian.” As my friend Don Rickles would say, “Would you like a cookie?”

Something deep inside tells me that Grayson did not say the same thing to Alabama-born and ergo fellow outsider Mitch McConnell last month when the senate minority leader and 16 other Republican senators who supported last year’s bailouts threw a $500 per plate Washington D.C. fundraiser for him.

But Rand Paul, who has lived in the Bluegrass State since 1993, landed the real zinger in this verbal dust-up: “I’ve been a Kentuckian longer than Grayson’s been a Republican,” reminding voters that their Republican secretary of state was a Democratic delegate for Bill Clinton in 1992.

The other recent smear against Rand Paul is pure farce. It’s so bad . . .

In unison: “How bad was it?”

It’s so bad that if I didn’t know better, I would have suspected the Rand Paul campaign of making it up just so they could make their opponent and his supporters look foolish.

Trey Grayson can thank Breathitt County GOP chairman and campaign donor Mike Bryant for his cute website: Too Kooky For Kentucky.

The title itself is not surprising either. In “Fire Two!” after Rand Paul was smeared by the Voice Tribune of Louisville, I wrote in this blog that it won’t be long until Rand is branded as “just the kook son of chief kook Ron Paul.” Lo and behold, the picture at the head of Too Kooky for Kentucky has Ron Paul on the left and Rand Paul on the right with each of them wearing a dunce cap.

Interviewed on WTVQ-TV in Lexington we meet Mr. Mike Bryant. Rotund, bald, and donning squarish eye glasses, he kind of looks like me without the long sideburns.

After obviously searching for some coherent criticism, Bryant says, “Really, we don’t know yet what Rand stands for in a lot of cases.”

This complaint is laughable in a couple of ways.

Neither Trey Grayson nor any of his supporters have any ground on which to stand when they charge that they don’t know what Rand Paul stands for. As I’ve pointed out numerous times here, the Paul campaign website provides detailed descriptions of his positions whereas as Grayson’s campaign website, until very recently, was as bare as Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard when it came to the issues.

The other point here is that after only a brief survey of Too Kooky for Kentucky, one can easily conclude that the editor does clearly know what Rand Paul stands for. His claim on TV was, let’s say, excessively disingenuous.

He knows that Rand Paul is an antiwar Republican, he knows that he is against the Patriot Act, and he knows that he wants to end the War on Drugs. Of course, all of this makes him “kooky.” Kind of makes me wonder if Mr. Bryant would have dared call the late William F. Buckley a “kook,” who in the last years of his life expressed sympathy with each of those views.

And every post in Mr. Bryant’s little site is entered under the pen name “Ben Franklin.”

In an entry that is probably too ironic for the Too Kooky for Kentucky editor to get is when “Ben Franklin” writes “Like Obama and Kerry – Rand Paul Speaks out Against the Patriot Act.

If I could get old Doc Brown’s time machine up and running again, I’d like to take this “Ben Franklin” so he can meet the original Ben Franklin. You know, the one who said, “Anyone who would sacrifice liberty for security will lose both.”

Examples like this could go on and on. It already has here.

So why fuss over Too Kooky for Kentucky, an obviously ill-conceived smear website? Well, if it was edited by a Joe Schmo Trey Grayson supporter, it wouldn't be worth any trouble.

But it's not run by a Joe Schmo. It's edited by a county party chairman who actually did the voters of Kentucky a huge favor. Grayson, who appears devoid of any discernible political philosophy, has been shown exactly what is expected of him as a senator.

He is expected to be a Bush Republican.

He is expected to do war, he is expected keep government appraised of our personal lives, he is expected to ignore the Constitution and he is expected to do war some more.

But this is also the Kentucky Republican Party strategy: Slime Rand Paul.

They cannot debate him on the issues. If they could, they wouldn’t have to call him a “kook” or disparage his outsider status. Or they could tell us about the “unkooky” ideas of Trey Grayson.

What they want is for Rand Paul to just go away. He’s inconveniencing Trey Grayson’s ascension as Mitch McConnell Jr.

But since Rand Paul insists on yapping his gums about antiquated ideas like the Constitution and balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility the Grayson people will have just one card to play:

The FEAR RAND PAUL CARD.

And they will play it, as they say in Kentucky, 'til the cows come home.

*

Stick it to Trey Grayson, Mitch McConnell, and their lackeys by donating to a candidate with real ideas here.

Update: Call and Adams, the Voice-Tribune columnists who smeared Rand in August (here and here) issued him a back-handed compliment last week in this column. They write, "Traditional candidates must secretly envy guys like U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul, who can raise big money over the internet from donors all over the country in events named 'money bombs.'" But notice their contempt when they say, "If Paul is smart, he'll use the extra time on his hands to campaign with Kentuckians who can actually vote for him."

I wonder if they had the same advice for Trey Grayson, the recent beneficiary of a $500/plate D.C. fundraiser. Since it was in Washington D.C., I'm sure there were only Kentuckians there scratching checks for Grayson. Oh, and according to the Paul campaign, their August "money bomb" had an average donation of $86 with 70% of the donations under $100. Just some food for thought about the "big money" Rand Paul gets on the internet.

8 comments:

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Carl: this race interests me but I doubt posting a pro Rand Paul comment under the Truth 101 moniker would be of much help to him. No use giving the opposition a chance to say look who's supporting Rand Paul. (Believe it or not. Word gets around. Comments or portions of them can go all over the place even though it looks like traffic is not very much.) If you wish, I can comment under different moniker should I have anything useful to add.

Skyorbit said...

I mentioned that over I my blog too. I have the video clip posted too.
Kentucky Race: Actually, we know pretty much everything Rand Paul Stands for.

From where I sit, it seems to me we don't really know anything about Grayson's positions. Of course NOW he has some issues on his blog that he's Parroting from Rand.
Trey Grayson has issues now!

Carl Wicklander said...

Truth,

You're right about that. Part of Grayson's strategy is to smear Rand Paul as a deranged left-wing loon. That's probably the biggest theme at the Too Kooky site:

Rand Paul is like Obama! Rand Paul is like Kerry! Be afraid because he's really a liberal!

I understand if you want to post under a different name. It's up to you because the opposition is already using the tactic of trying to make Rand look like a scary liberal.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate it.

Carl Wicklander said...

Skyorbit,

Thanks for coming by.

You're right about Grayson. When I originally composed this piece, I still had him as not having any positions, officially, on the issues. I had to amend it when I checked back with his website to discover that he had FINALLY come up with an issues script to follow.

Law and Order Teacher said...

CW,
I'm ready to listen to anyone who propounds conservative principles. The rest are just pretenders. What I will be watching is what the Repubs do with any new found power that comes with their wins.

I saw that Boehner, from my state, has said he regrets backing the RINO in upstate NY. Really? What were you thinking? Oh right, politics as usual. A joke.

Carl Wicklander said...

Law and Order Teacher,

Thanks for your visit.

I became disgruntled with Boehner last year in the way that he took both sides on the bailouts: leading the charge against them and then capitulating. That he supported a RINO is not earth-shattering news for me.

I'm also not too worked up about last night's elections. The Republicans were expected to win in Virginia where recent suggested a Republican would win anyway and a moderate won in the blue state of New Jersey.

Even though you're across the river, you may want to look into Rand Paul's campaign in Kentucky. I'm sure you won't agree on everything, but judging from the content of your blog and comment, you would probably agree quite a bit.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

It's like I told one of my lefty friends. Anyone that has no use for George W. Bush and wants us out of Iraq and Afghanistan can't be all bad.

Law and Order Teacher said...

CW,
I'm in the research mode. Let me read a bit and I'll come to a conclusion. Thanks for the tip on Paul. We need someone to lead the conservative charge. Grayson appears to be a politician as usual guy, who's a Repub before a conservative.