Per CNN, the Tribble-Topped Presidential Aspirant’s campaign is no more. Can he still run to retain his seat in Kentucky? I can’t remember.
Anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish, amirite, citizens? I’m guessing Trump and Cruz divvy up the Paul constituency evenly — unless it’s an odd number like five instead of four or six.
Emperor Snapper
Paul actually got KY to change their primary date so that eh could run for Pres & Senate at the same time. That was taxpayer dollars well spent, I see.
schrodinger's cat
He looks better in your cartoon than IRL.
dmsilev
Yes.
dr. bloor
Farewell Rand, we hardly knew ye.
Actually, that’s not true. Good riddance, asshole.
MattF
I guess there was, at the start, the possibility that Paul would inject some foreign policy non-craziness into the R mix– but that didn’t work, not at all. The Klown Kar won on that subject, hands down.
NonyNony
@Emperor Snapper: He actually couldn’t get the legislature to change the rules about the primary (which requires his name to appear on the ballot only once, meaning he would have had to pick whether he was running for Senate or the Presidency), so he did the next best thing – he convinced the Kentucky GOP to have a caucus this year for the presidency instead. (IIRC, he promised to pay for it)
Which means that this jackass upended the way that Kentucky has been selecting candidates for years just to have his own vanity run for the Presidency (and he knew it was a longshot because if it wasn’t he would have retired his Senate seat like Rubio did). I hope Republican voters remember that when they’re having to go to the caucus on March 5th and then go back in May for their primary.
Yutsano
@dmsilev: And he is. Could be he got a hair spooked because the Democrats are putting up a really good opponent, although I’m sure Botsplainer et al can talk about his credentials better than I can.
shortstop
I wonder if he’ll really stick around long in the Senate. He seems like a preznit-or-nuthin’ kind of guy. I get the same vibe off Cruz. And we already know Rubio’s in that camp.
Germy
If he loses the senate, will I see him in a gold coin web ad here, or warning of imminent worldwide economic collapse while selling lifelock?
Peale
@MattF: I guess now that there’s bitcoin, a return to the gold standard seemed too old-fashioned for the enthusiastic supporters of his father.
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: On the other hand, he grew up watching Papa Doc work the political grift, so maybe he’ll stick it out. It’s probably easier than peering into eyeballs all day…
Mai.naem.mobile
The crazy part is that the Klown Kar was sooo crazy this year that Rand came across as one of the saner ones.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
FROTHY MIX just dropped out!
Amir Khalid
I had him categorised under “Kooks and Wowsers”. Now there’s only three of those left: Carson, Fiorina, and Santorum. Five of my ten “Damp Squibs of the Establishment” are still running, though, if you can apply that term to Gilmore.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Amir Khalid:
Santorum just suspended.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:
Him too? Dang. That leaves just two of my “Kooks
and Wowsers”: Carson and Fiorina.Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Black Wednesday! Pretty sure Frothy’s supporters will go to Cruz. Both of them.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Amir Khalid:
Which of the two do you predict will be next to depart? I’m guessing Miss Carly.
scav
Rand Ranned..
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
Just saw a huge side-of-the-road sign for Cruz. First for anyone I’ve spotted, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there yesterday.
TomG
Hopefully the more honest of his fans will not pick a Republican, but hold out and vote for Gary Johnson (who is definitely running on the Libertarian ticket)
WereBear
That’s right, he was running. :)
I guess he just doesn’t have the weasely good looks and rowdy charisma of his father.
Villago Delenda Est
He’ll be back in 2020. After all, he’s an eye doctor, right?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Democratic pols here in my office in the People’s Democratic Socialist Kenyan Shariah Republic of Louisville are gleeful (the Metro Council President and another council member are among the lawyers here). Paul had to get a law change and agreed to pay for the caucus since it was applicable to him; in order to flop it back, the General Assembly has got to do another statute amendment. According to the fellas, this sucks Republicans into some pretty good expense, and money dumped into caucuses means money not thrown at them.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:
Hard to say. With Carson, I guess it depends on what the voices in his head tell him. Fiorina, being a successful corporate CEO and all, may need to make up some executive-sounding lie (to tell herself, if nobody else) about what she achieved on this running-for-president lark.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: I think Carly’s ego won’t allow for it. After the ignomious Senate defeat, she will be given her righteous due dammit!
I think Ben rides out until after Super Tuesday or the money is gone, whichever comes first. After that, we’ll have three or four ride out until the convention with a deathmatch for the vice-presidency. But I don’t think Carly’s done. Not by a long shot.
@Amir Khalid: I still say it’s a VP audition. It’s her way of saying she’s the only way to blunt Clintonmentum.
Archon
One of these days a honest libertarian is gonna have to explain to me why they thought it was a good idea to align themselves with the right-wing in this country which is at it’s core authoritarian.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Villago Delenda Est:
Nice. I saw what you did there.
I’ll make sure to tip the waitstaff.
Hungry Joe
@Villago Delenda Est: Re 20/20: Really? REALLY? And I used to think quite highly of you.
Amir Khalid
Lieber Gott. Won’t someone put this poor man out of his misery?
Bobby Thomson
Frothy mixture out.
Villago Delenda Est
@Archon: Because all the “Libertarians” are actually authoritarians who want to bring back feudalism, and imagine that they’ll be the feudal lords.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Archon:
There is a not insignificant numberof people who identify as libertarian that views “liberty” as having the freedom to order society the way the majority desires. This can include outright racial and religious oppression, state support of their religious doctrine, authoritarian moral codes in civil law, misogyny as policy, exclusion of people by race or gender, etc.
It is the opposite of liberty, but it fits a large Venn subset of the Free Republic and Redstate crowd, and commands folks like Cruz, Bachman, Santorum, Franklin Graham and Huckabee when they talk about religious liberty.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hungry Joe: Yes, I pulled a Mark Watney there.
Bobby Thomson
@Archon: there are no libertarians. Just authoritarians with vices.
schrodinger's cat
From the earlier morning thread.
A 5 judge bench of India’s Supreme Court is going to review the constitutionality of Article 377, a statute from the Raj era which criminalizes homosexuality.
There is also a new movie out called Aligarh based on a true story about the case of Prof. Siras of the Aligharh Muslim University who was fired for the offense of being gay. He sued his employers successfully but committed suicide soon after.
In the trailer, Manoj Bajpai who plays Siras, is telling the reporter in the trailer that he is an outsider because he teaches Marathi in an Urdu speaking town and is an unmarried person leaving among married people.
Modi’s toady on the Censor Board has even slapped a restricted viewing certificate on the trailer.
oklahomo
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: How mnay people will drive off the road after the horror of seeing him?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Clap for the ¡Heb!man, he gonna rate your record high!
Betty Cracker
@Archon: Ain’t that the damned truth?
Iowa Old Lady
@Yutsano: I suspect Fiorina is getting support from other campaigns so they can send her out as a woman to go after Clinton.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: Good point. There’s a never-ending stream of sweet, sweet cash coming from Paulbots. But Rand strikes me as more impatient and egotistical than his dad. ‘Twill be interesting to see what his future moves are.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: That’s “blah Wednesday” to you, missy.
Tripod
The Paul constituency wasn’t transferable. For whatever reason, college aged males love wacky old coots speaking truth to power. Rand just comes off as a weaselly asshole.
He’ll lose that seat sooner rather than later. Either a Democrat will do better than expected against him, or a culture warrior will right flank him in the primary.
shortstop
@scav: scav, did you go to the Chicago meetup last night?
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: Are you referring to this? Pathetic. And no, I don’t feel sorry for him.
Calouste
I’m rather surprised that Huckabee, Paul, and Santorum have dropped out already, and very surprised that Paul dropped out before New Hampshire, where he might get a somewhat decent result. I’d have thought that they would have stayed in for a long time just for the grift. Wondering where the money is going then. I know Carson is doing well with small donations fleecing the evangelical rubes.
Yutsano
Also: are we gonna get a thread about Teh Donald’s major hissy fit?
shortstop
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: @Yutsano: According to The Onion, Fiorina is telling her inkjet printer that the race must go on.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:
You mean we can say “Santorum has touched bottom” now?
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
I want to believe he’s tried dropping out two or three times already but Bar grabs him by the ear and drags him back to the campaign bus, hissing “You started it, now you finish it, mister.”
RareSanity
@Archon:
Yeah, “libertarians” are different from Republicans just like Bill O’Reilly is an “independent”.
Amir Khalid
@Yutsano:
I have to wonder what Fiorina will say in her VP pitch to the nominee. Can she offer popularity in regions where the nominee’s appeal doesn’t come through? They don’t even like her in California, where she made her name; 30,000 ex-HPers and all that. Can she appeal to women better than Hillary? I think not.
But would her CEO experience be an asset to the administration? Given the competence level we here at BJ would expect of a Republican administration, it might at that. Yes, she should base her VP pitch on executive ability.
shortstop
@trollhattan: Poppy, too. He just can’t understand why America has turned on his family. When I heard he called Nikki Haley after her SOTU response to “congratulate” her and tell her about the Bushes’ “unique bond with SC,” I suspected he was telling her to get on board with Jeb and there’d be a place on the ticket for her. She must have laughed hysterically when she hung up the phone — if she waited that long.
I do think Jeb’s also being carried along by his own significant rage at upstart Rubio daring to run against him. This is all to the good, as the longer Bush stays in, 1) the more we’re entertained and b) the longer it takes Rubio to amass more donors and dollars.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Yutsano:
I see what you did there.
Tracy Ratcliff
Kentuckians: one would assume that the Republicans have jiggered the rules of the caucus to prevent a Tea Party rebellion to put one of their own on the ballot instead of Paul, but I’d love it if Paul manages to lose his day job, too. Any rumors from the red side of things?
Paul in KY
@Yutsano: I think her whole shtick is you gotta have a clitoris to take on the Clintons.
You can see how well that’s gone for her…
Roger Moore
@Archon:
If you ever find an honest libertarian, please take a picture. We can put it next to the ones of bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.
ET
I see Santorum is now out. My first thought was “he was still running?”
kc
Good riddance. I just hope I live long enough to see the day when no one named Bush, Clinton, or Paul is running for president.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: I said in a previous thread that out there getting humiliated is better than being around her. You know she’ll never come to one of his loser rallies.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: She can say things about Hillary that no Non-Trump nominee would contemplate saying in public. I think that’s her pitch.
shortstop
@Paul in KY: Little surprises me in these political times, but I did stand around open-mouthed when Fiorina started mocking the strength of the Clinton marriage and reminding us of Bill’s infidelities. Ms. Fiorina was living with her second husband while he was still married to his first wife. I can only assume she knew she was safe from a media clobbering on this issue because no one cares enough about her to report on it.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: If there are any real libertarians, they side with the Repubs, because they are probably wealthy & like the Repub’s tax policies, etc.
scav
@shortstop: Alas, no. It was a busy night for me. Assume it was a good one.
Paul in KY
@shortstop: Yeah, but he wasn’t out there cheating on her…so there…neener neeener.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
There does appear to be a backlash building against Kentucky’s “wanna talk national movement conservative shit all the time” members of Congress. A lot of people love their free shit.
Although I work in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Louisville (capably represented by the reliably progressive and well loved John Yarmuth), I live in KY-04, which is represented by rosy-cheeked tea-child Thomas Massie (a guy so far up Koch Bros. asses that they’re using him as a double-ended dildo). Massie seems to have lost his roadmap that would send him to his sprawling, unwieldy district (it spreads from Ashland on the WVa border to the southern suburbs of Cincinnati to the exurbs northeast of Louisville). NONE of the main population bodies in the district have anything in common with one another, and the biggest demographic lump in the district is the set of about 300,000 right across the river from Cincinnati. About 100,000 of them are fun-loving people out to have a good time directly across the river. About 200,000 are the angriest, loudest, hypocritical, pharisaic, most irritating right wing douchebags on this spinning rock. That set loves their national movement conservatives. They live in tract homes and McMansions, disdain the Enlightenment and don’t give a shit about competent governance – they’re all about slut-shaming, god-bothering, low taxes and being smugly white. And even in that environment, they’re grumbling.
The rest of the congressional delegation is pretty normal, if conservative, and run decent constituent services. Hal Rodgers has always done right by his people, as has Brett Guthrie (in an odd moment while representing a women in a same sex divorce, I met Brett and found him to be warm, funny and genuinely engaged with his constituents).
McConnell is still coasting on delivering A LOT of pork in the past. Paul, not so much. People are wondering what use he is.
Citizen_X
@Roger Moore: Oh, come on! Why, there’s Rodney Balko, and, uh, um…I’ll have to get back to you.
cmorenc
Consider that Paul is actually better…in the sense of less awful than any of the remaining candidates in the GOP field, save for possibly John Kasich. Which is not of course anything remotely like a positive recommendation for Paul. He would have been a horrible President who may have been at best somewhat less inclined to engage the US in macho warhawk misadventures than the others, but would likely have squished on pushing for repeal of marijuana prohibitions (he already did to try to appeal to more establishment GOP voters, but they weren’t buying and he lost the youth glibertarians with that move).
shortribs
I’m a little surprised Randy dropped out before NH, figured he’d do well there, enough to stick around for a couple more states. His campaign must be in debt and he doesn’t seem that capabable of raising money.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: This: ‘biggest demographic lump in the district is the set of about 300,000 right across the river from Cincinnati. About 100,000 of them are fun-loving people out to have a good time directly across the river. About 200,000 are the angriest, loudest, hypocritical, pharisaic, most irritating right wing douchebags on this spinning rock. That set loves their national movement conservatives. They live in tract homes and McMansions, disdain the Enlightenment and don’t give a shit about competent governance – they’re all about slut-shaming, god-bothering, low taxes and being smugly white.’ is one of the best descriptions of those Northern KY douches I’ve ever read!
FlipYrWhig
@cmorenc: I really can’t explain why Paul flopped so badly. I remember center-left Hillary detractors (actual people I actually know) at the beginning of the process saying that she was lousy and boring and they wanted to hear more from Rand Paul. It says something about the national appeal of libertarians and libertarianism, I suppose.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: Yup, that’s also linked to in Amir’s post I replied to.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortribs: The grift take is being cut into for expenses, and we can’t have that. Need to pull out before actual Rand money is needed to do shit.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Paul in KY:
I can’t stand them. My multiply pierced and tatted up youngest communist pro-choice social justice warrior daughter goes to UC and dates a kid whose parents are Northern KY douches. I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall to observe their initial meeting and hear the after action commentary.
Heh.
Brachiator
@Archon:
I think your problem is with the idea that you can find an honest libertarian.
catclub
@FlipYrWhig:
How about this? A large fraction of Ron Paul’s and Rand Paul’s followers are racists. Trump stole all the racists.
End of story.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: My 1st cousin & her family lives there (around Ft. Thomas). they fall in the 100,000 cohort & although they love the area, they despise that 200,000.
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: I remember people who are now Hillary supporters saying about a year ago that they were interested in Rand Paul. Well-off white liberalish people. I think he has some Bloombergian appeal to people who imagine that they’re above the two-party system and think Republicans are insane. At least until they hit Charlie Pierce’s five-minute mark.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@catclub:
@FlipYrWhig:
McConnell had hand-groomed Trey Grayson to get that spot. Trey had been a supremely competent Secretary of State, and had been trained up in the old McConnell way – start from the premise of competence when running any executive or administrative function.
The guy was good at his job – everybody knew it, and would have made a very good Senator, as he didn’t exude relentless partisanship.
Rand Paul basically sailed into the primary via a Ron Paul moneybomb – the ads were relentless in that primary. Grayson was stunned by being so vilified and abandoned electoral office for various other positions, ultimately taking posts at Harvard (where he was looking at minority voting patterns) and directing GabbyPAC in 2012 (clearly a RINO). Apparently, he’s currently running the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.
McConnell has been looking for opportunities to shiv Paul every time they came up since 2010.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Tee-hee!
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: Oh yeah, he’s a dillweed and I find him condescending and offputting. But so is Cruz, so is Christie. There’s nothing exciting about Rubio or Bush and Trump is a buffoon. I’m just surprised that the con couldn’t keep running for a lot longer. How could a libertarian bro flail in NEW HAMPSHIRE? Why isn’t he at least where Kasich is? It’s really strange to me.
Miss Bianca
@trollhattan: @Amir Khalid:
No, because this
ETA: Apparently, someone besides Jeb believes in Tinkerbell,,,altho’ even they cite the “please clap” thing at the end, with its whiff of desparation…
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@catclub:
I have asked the Paulistas, Rand Paul, Freedomworks, Liberty News and anyone tweeting from that end of the fake libertarian spectrum to please explain to me, like I’m five years old, how sponsoring a Personhood Amendment enhances liberty for women. Guess what? No answer, no response, not even a nasty retort. So, not just racists – they’re strictly a straight white boys club.
shortstop
@FlipYrWhig: I’ve wondered if it isn’t at least partly because of his communication style. He’s toned it down quite a lot in this campaign, but until recently he had an exceptionally arrogant, condescending way of speaking, making sure that everyone knew he thought he was the smartest guy in any room he was in.
His dad could be energetically outraged, but he really didn’t talk to people like they were stupid. Rand came off as a privileged brat benefiting from what his dad built without paying his dues. That didn’t bother the young Paulbots, but it doesn’t help bring in the older, more sedate “freedom lovers” he needed in Iowa and NH.
catclub
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Good point. Trump also takes a lot of that straight white boys club.
lol chikinburd
Just got back to this house (that we’re furiously cleaning out to sell it) from a couple errands, one of which being dropping off ten garbage bags of Mom’s clothes for donation at St. Vincent de Paul, and the other being dumping all of Mom’s medications — the cancer meds, the anti-diarrheals, the anti-nausea meds, the anti-anxiety meds she was going through at a worrying pace in the last months, and all the pain meds…
…It’s a sad finality to get rid of all that clothing. As for the meds…I wish I never had to see another prescription bottle as long as I lived.
FlipYrWhig
@shortstop: Sounds like a possibility.
Turgidson
@Archon:
Simple. They care a lot more about being freed of the burden of taxation than they do about any of the other “freedoms” or “liberties” they prattle on about. After all, libertarians are almost all white guys who are reasonably well-off or at least comfortable. They’re about as “free” as anyone on this planet has ever been, already.
Calouste
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I wouldn’t say they are strictly a straight white boys club. Former blog favorites Glenn Greenwald and Andrew what’s-his-name are definitely also in that corner.
mclaren
Time for a….MONEY BOMB!
Kathleen
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: You totally nailed my “neighbors” across the river (“I can see the Brent Spence from my condo”). Aren’t Northern KY’ers the primary Tea Party stronghold in the state?
Also, too, fetalmaniacs and urber Catholic.
Kathleen
@Paul in KY: I affectionately refer to the Kenton/Campbell corridors as “Ft. Fascist”, and Boone County as the place I go when I want to get my soul sucked out of me.
J R in WV
@ET:
Santorum runs freely because of its low viscosity!
Paul in KY
@Kathleen: Yeah, that’s a good moniker for the area. My cousin loves the proximity to Cincinnati & Ft. Thomas area is a nice place to raise a family.