The (Attempted) Political Assassination of Rand Paul

One year ago, Dr. Rand Paul, son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, made barely a blip on the American politics radar screen. Today, onAugust 12th, he aims to be the first candidate to be elected to the Senate with the support of the grassroots Tea Party movement.

It was pretty clear that the political establishment hated him from the start. He didn't have the blessing of the long-established kingpins in the GOP, and the liberal Democrats thought he was a right-wing nightmare waiting to happen. After Rand Paul applied for his official Senate candidacy as a Republican, the support from the growing Tea Party movement was immediate. Many of the Tea Partiers already supported his father, Ron Paul, and his son, while differing with his father on some policies, matched his father's dedication to constitutional conservatism. That was enough to fire up the Tea Partiers, and it quickly became evident that it was enough for Kentucky conservatives as well. Paul's message of limited government, fiscal conservatism, and balanced government budgets inspired Kentucky Republicans to elect him as the Republican Senate candidate for Kentucky over his establishment-picked opponent, Trey Grayson.

Grayson ran a dirty campaign, trying to snipe Rand Paul with false or exaggerated accusations which were supposed to demonstrate to Kentucky conservatives that he wasn't right for Kentucky or the nation. Kentuckians didn't buy it; the anti-establishment wave had begun to crest, and Grayson was too close to the big-wigs in DC for Kentucky Republicans to believe that he was anything new or improved.

Rand Paul is now poised to defeat his Democrat opponent at the polls as well, and is currently leading by several points. The holy alliance of the political establishment and the mainstream media has been doing everything in their enormous power to derail his campaign, however, and the road has been thus far bumpy. Take Rand Paul's stance on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which he explained on Rachel Maddow's show. It would unleash a barrage of wicked criticism from both liberal Democrats and his fellow Republicans:

"I don't like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant, but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership."

You could almost hear the collective gasp as the left's 46-year-old sacred cow was blasphemed against. Rand Paul surely had a white robe and hood hanging in his closet, with a tool shed full of wooden crosses and gasoline. The aforementioned holy alliance had their target, and they began to take potshots.

Pretty much every variation of the "racist" charge was thrown around by both Democrats and establishment Republicans. Paul's Democrat opponent, Jack Conway, said that Paul "rejected the fundamental provision of the Civil Rights Act," and that, to him, was "a rejection of the progress we've made over the last half-century." Progress, indeed.

Say or do anything that allows the political-media alliance to label you a racist, and your career is automatically in jeopardy, whether your career is in politics or not. Just look at what happened to Shirley Sherrod, who worked for the Department of Agriculture. There is no worse thing that a person can possibly be in America, and yet racism has killed fewer people than communism, pollution, and several of the Seven Deadly Sins, I'm pretty sure. So why does the term and idea of racism have so much power? Such a question is the topic for another conversation, another day.

What can be said now is that the media and Rand's political opponents used the deadliest weapon in politics against him, and failed. They may fail again if Rand Paul becomes the next Senator for Kentucky, which he very well may do. Paul backed off a bit from his initial stance, but he's a political novice, and his two-step backpedal didn't detract from his original (and reasonable) stance, nor did it hurt his credibility with Kentuckians or other conservatives.

The political assassination attempts continue, of course.Take the recent accusation by an anonymous female:

"The article in GQ quotes an unnamed woman as saying Pauland a friend once blindfolded her, tied her up, drove her to their house and tried to force her to smoke marijuana. The woman said she and Paul were teammates on the Baylor University swim team at the time, about a quarter-century ago." (Quote from AP news story: "GOP candidate Paul denies kidnapping suggestions")

Not only was the source of this claim anonymous, but there was no proof given for such a ridiculous accusation. In a time when journalistic integrity is as rare as naturally-occurring plutonium, it's no surprise that GQ ran with the story without any such proof. Rand Paul basically laughed it off, which was a pretty great reaction; most other candidates would sweat through their suits.

All of these incidents targeting Rand Paul prove that the political establishment in our nation's capital has an agenda, and Rand Paul is not part of it. Nor will any other grassroots candidate be a part of that agenda, as demonstrated by Trent Lott's recent comment that incoming GOP congressmen and Senators from the Tea Party movement need to be "co-opted" by the Republican establishment so they can fall within the acceptable party lines. Thanks for being honest, Trent.

I truly hope Rand Paul goes all the way to the Senate, and that his candidacy inspires other true, constitutional conservatives to aggressively run for office. A Senator Rand Paul would knock the political big-wigs back on their heels. We can't afford not to seize advantage of that.