WASHINGTON — Political novice Rand Paul rode support from tea party activists to victory in Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary Tuesday night, delivering a jolt to the GOP establishment and providing fresh evidence of widespread voter discontent in a turbulent midterm election season.
Paul had 59 percent of the vote — with returns counted from 29 percent of the precincts — to 37 percent for Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who had been recruited to run by the state’s dominant Republican, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
I had a chance today for the first time to read about the highlights of the first day of the “Obama trial.” I found myself uncomfortable being involved or associated in any way with the wild charges, claims and conspiracy theories that have been publicly aired by this mock trial. I believe these wild charges and claims actually damage any future legitimate opportunity to question President Obama’s background. This forum has an agenda and I have come to the conclusion it is not my agenda. I called Pastor Manning personally this morning to explain why I’ve decided not to participate. He understood completely. We wished each other well.
I believe any association with this trial would discredit the opportunity to have a fair, open and balanced discussion or debate in the future. I want to be part of any such future opportunity. I have much to say about President Obama, and many questions about his past and present actions, but I’m more comfortable airing them in a mainstream media forum. More importantly, I’d rather spend my time discussing, debating and questioning Mr. Obama’s current policies that I believe are toxic to America, the U.S. economy and capitalism, than spending my time debating his past. I’d rather spend my valuable time in the media on educating voters about the dramatic expansion of government under Obama; the nonstop violations of the Constitution; the deadly expansion of deficit and national debt; the political payoffs disguised as stimulus and bailouts; the lack of transparency of this administration; Obama’s pro union agenda at all costs- no matter what damage is done to the economy. All of these are far more important to America’s future than Obama’s past. We cannot change the past, but we can change the future direction of this country away from Obama’s dangerous agenda- if we are not distracted by wild claims and conspiracy theories.
I’ve got to agree with Jason Pye, that this sounds mostly like Root got caught doing something stupid and is now trying to backtrack like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Jason also makes another point:
The Libertarian Party at the national level is broken. It has been for some time. Whenever we gain a sliver of success we tend to do something in another area that messes it up.
Jason has a lot more experience with internal LP politics than I do, but he’s absolutely right, and it’s something I’ve seen for years now, and it really started with the internal squabbling that erupted after the 1980 Presidential campaign, which still stands as the high watermark for Libertarian candidates nationally.
It seems pretty clear to me that Root, who seems more interested in self-promotion than much of anything else based on my observations of the man, would represent another one of those mistakes.
FLORENCE, Ky. — Rand Paul grabbed a microphone, climbed onto a short brick wall and told a gathering crowd of supporters to brace for an Election Day uprising on Tuesday.
“There’s a Tea Party tidal wave coming. It’s already hit Utah and it’s coming to Kentucky,” Mr. Paul said, delivering a confident pep talk here in the closing hours of the Republican primary for a United States Senate seat. “The day of reckoning is coming. We cannot elect the same old politicians without getting the same old mess.”
If his confidence is borne out by victory, it would mark one of the most important moments yet for the Tea Party, the anti-Washington, anti-big government movement that was partially inspired by the quixotic 2008 presidential race of his father, Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
Establishment Republicans — including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, former Vice President Dick Cheney and the Chamber of Commerce — have united in opposition to Mr. Paul, but optimism was diminishing that their candidate, Trey Grayson, could prevail.
The Paul-Grayson race has been fairly interesting to watch, if only because of the manner in which it’s laid bare the differences between the establishment GOP and the Tea Parties. Grayson, Kentucky’s Secretary of State and a long-time Republican activist, has received support from Washington Republicans like Dick Cheney and Mitch McConnell. On the other hand Rand Paul, a Lexington, KY eye surgeon who’s main involvement in politics prior to today was during his father’s campaigns, has garnered the support of Senators Jim DeMint and the retiring Jim Bunning. Most recently, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson took the unusual step of switching his endorsement from Grayson to Paul after revealing that an unnamed party, later identified as Mitch McConnell, had been misleading Dobson about Paul’s views on abortion.
Despite the establishment attacks, Paul has maintained a consistent lead in the polls, and, based on where the race stands with one last day of campaigning to go, looks poised to score a decisive victory tomorrow night. Trey Greyson, meanwhile, has taken the rather unusual (for a Republican at least) step of attacking Fox News in the final hours of the campaign:
By frequently putting Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul and Grayson’s opponent, on its air, Grayson says the network has all but endorsed Paul and given him an easy way to tout his candidacy without actually meeting Kentucky voters in person.
“I’ve been on Fox News once, on a live feed on one of the shows, and I was told I was to expect a certain line of questioning, and I was given a different line of questioning,” Grayson said. Referring to Rand Paul, Grayson said, “He’s on all of the time.”
“His dad had these phenomenal contacts, so … he’s on Fox News every couple of weeks with softballs,” said Grayson. Imitating an anchor’s voice, Grayson said the questions are softballs such as, “Rand, tell us about health care, you’re a doctor. Rand, tell us about the tea party.”
When a politician starts saying things like that, especially when there are only a few hours to go before voting starts, you can pretty much conclude that they’ve seen the last of the internal polls and they’re pretty sure they’re going to lose.
As for Paul himself, we’re likely to be hearing much more from him after Tuesday night. There’s still a General Election campaign to get through in November, of course, but the odds of a Republican losing in statewide race Kentucky in a year that seems destined to be good for Republicans in general seem pretty darn low to say the least. In the meantime, other Republicans might be interesting in figuring out how he’s accomplished the seeming impossible:
The political genius of Paul is his ability to cultivate a narrative that speaks to all strains of the Tea Party movement at once. After all, the libertarian purists who loved Ron Paul’s dissident truth-telling are not natural allies of the Limbaugh Dittoheads who dismissed him as an eccentric. He sings his libertarianism in the key of Glenn Beck – and he is writing a Republican playbook for the tea party era, turning grassroots energy into electoral power. Now, less than a week before the primary, polls show Paul’s lead over Grayson approaching 20 points. He also leads both of his potential Democratic challengers in the general election polling
It’s the kind of fusion that Republicans in other states will need to create if they’re going to prevail as well, and it all started in Kentucky.
Wayne Allyn Root, the businessman and online gambling advocate who served as Bob Barr’s running mate on the Libertarian ticket in 2008, is casting his lot in with the birthers. As Radley Balko reports, Root promotes on his Facebook page his participation in a “trial of Barack Obama” that took place last week in New York:
With thousands of spectators expecting to attend, Dr. James Manning’s ‘trial of the century’ of Barack Obama on charges of treason, fraud, and sedition begins tomorrow morning at 9 AM in New York City. Co-defendants in the trial are Columbia University and the CIA. In the last days of the run-up to the trial, Manning revealed that he has sources in government that will testify against Obama, Columbia, and the CIA. He also reported explosive information that Barack Obama has used upwards of 20 different Social Security numbers during his life. Witnesses are expected to testify at the trial that Barack Obama was never a student at Columbia University, although he received a degree from the school. Dr. Manning claims that Columbia, therefore, is an accomplice to fraud. Other witnesses are expected to testify that Obama fails the Constitutional test for Presidential eligibility due to the fact that his father was a British subject at the time of his birth and his mother was not old enough to confer citizenship when he was born. A dramatic new revelation, however, may serve to re-emphasize the importance of the trial. The state of Hawaii, according to sources, did NOT accept his birth registration that was filed, despite issuing a ‘statement of live birth.’
Of course, the possibility that Root and Obama may have traveled in different circles at Columbia, a school that had thousands of undergraduates at the time, does not seem to have occurred to Wayne at all, since he’s expressed this belief before. Why is this important ? Well, this year, Root is running for Chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, and he’s made it clear that this is merely a stepping stone to the 2012 nomination for President. Based on stuff like this, and the impression I got from reading Root’s The Conscience of a Libertarian, which I will be posting a review of in the very near future, I’ve got to completely agree with Radley Balko’s take on this:
I’m not a member of the Libertarian Party, though I’ve spoken to several state conventions over the last couple years. I have my problems with the party, but I’d like to see it do well, in part because for better or worse the LP has a significant impact on how people view libertarianism.
So let’s be clear about this: If Wayne Allyn Root becomes the face of the LP, it will be an unmitigated disaster for the party. It will also likely do quite a bit of damage to the public perception of libertarianism as a philosophy.
This is batshit crazy, off-the-charts conspiratorial hogwash. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Barack Obama. Root has chosen to dip into angry-white-guy, “Obama’s a secret Muslim” absolute and utter lunacy.
Libertarians: The man is a nut. Associate with him at your peril.
TOLEDO, OHIO — A Lucas County jury has found an Ottawa Hills police officer guilty of felonious assault in the May 2009 shooting of a motorcyclist.
After over five hours of deliberations, a jury found that part-time Ottawa Hills officer Thomas Caine White, 27, used excessive force in shooting motorcyclist Michael McCloskey, 25, during a traffic stop on May 23, 2009. White was found guilty of count of felonious assault with a gun specification, charges that could lead to 11 years in prison when he is sentenced.
McCloskey suffered serious injuries as a result of the shooting. He is now paralyzed from the waist down.
Attorneys for each side made closing arguments Friday afternoon.
The prosecution emphasized that this trial was not about all police officers or a specific police department but about the actions of Officer White that night.
Assistant Lucas County Prosecutor Jeff Lingo told the court that slides of the police dash cam video show McCloskey made no movement as if he had a weapon and the he gave no indication of being a threat to White. “He says, ‘Will you please lift the bike off me?’ This is after he’s been shot. He’s still being police to the officer who just shot him in the back. That’s the Mike McCloskey that he faced that night,” said Lingo
Here’s a video from White’s dashboard camera (no sound) which clearly shows the pursuit and shooting of McCloskey, and the fact that McCloskey made no threatening moves at all:
As noted above, Officer White faces up to eleven years in prison for this conviction.
, which I will be posting a review of in the very near future, I’ve got to completely agree with Radley Balko’s take on this: