On October 3rd 2009, a fundraiser and mixer was held for Rand Paul (Congressman Ron Paul’s son) who is running for an open congressional senate seat in Kentucky. Rand Paul and Trey Greyson are in a hotly contested Republican Primary race.
Several RLCers attended the event to show their support for Rand Paul, including Will Pitts, Johns Stevens, Kristi Dunn, Victor Wilhelm, Charlie Sheppard, and Noni Mayer.
Overall, Rand Paul described policy positions that were very similar to his father’s. The foreign policy positions continue to be controversial within the party, but Rand Paul’s father’s warnings about the impending economic catastrophe have come to a prophetic fruition. Rand described being very interested in term limits in Congress and the exploding and unsustainable deficits due to expanding entitlement programs. Of note was the Medicare prescription drug plan, TARP (bank bailout), and Economic Stimulus. The biggest concern was the TARP legislation being used as justification for the intervention and ownership of private companies by the federal government.
Of particular interest was the discussion of the how the national players in the Republican Party are actively suppressing competition in the primaries in several of the states’ races. This has become an alarming trend across the nation where party bosses select the primary candidate and pressure all competitors out of the race. Rand Paul described that his initial interest was in supporting the idea of competition in the primary, versus the GOP party elite making this choice for the people based on fiduciary considerations. This transformed into preparation to run his own campaign for the open senate seat should the pressure from the party bosses work to drive out competition.
We have seen this phenomena personally in Northeast Florida and throughout the state. Instead of the constituents for a particular political subdivision selecting a candidate from a spectrum of choices to represent their party, they are provided seemingly one choice. Unfortunately when good candidates stand on principle and stay in a race, the Republican Party elite blacklists those candidates and their supporters. In Florida, supporters of “insurgent” candidates who are “unrepentant” have been banished from holding any party leadership positions. This has resulted in precinct representatives, duly elected by the their constituents, being cast out from their representative positions. Even now the pressure is building to push Marco Rubio out of the Senate race against Charlie Crist. This pressure is also present to exclude competition for the Republican primary race for Florida Governor.
Rand Paul noted how the media reports that money is corrupting the political system in the United States; however, media outlets rarely focus on issues during the primary and instead focus on fundraising ability. Rand Paul described his campaign as picking up steam with the fundraising success of the “money bombs.” He also expressed gratitude for the large amount of grassroots support coming to his campaign. Rand is well positioned to win the Senate race if things keep going the way they are now.
Towards the end of the event, the tone was very optimistic as many in attendance expressed hope that the American people are beginning to become aware of the precarious position we are facing. All in attendance agreed that there were few problems that an American society could not solve when armed with free markets and individual liberty.
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October 6th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
So sorry I wasn’t able to attend. Looks as if it was a spectacular event.