Rand Paul told the Louisville Courier Journal he wouldn’t cut aid to Israel, and he’s going to visit the country this week. The Courier-Journal says he’s considering running for president. Well if you’re running for president, who do you need on your side? Rosie Gray at buzzfeed:
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has been holding a series of meetings with neo-conservative pro-Israel foreign policy hands as the libertarian prepares to take a seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sources familiar with the meetings said.
Paul’s new contacts include Dan Senor, a former key Mitt Romney foreign policy aide who is also close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Paul in his Washington office.
Paul is also going to take a “fairly impressive list of folks” on his trip to Israel next week, according to a source close to him, and he is planning on delivering a major foreign policy address in early February.
Noah Pollack tweeted yesterday, with joy:
He’s on the 11:30 El Al flight to TLV tonight RT @jmartpolitico: Most intrsting gop voice on hagel will be…. @SenRandPaul
Unlike his father, whose politics I don’t exactly share except on foreign policy, his son is basically summed up as a typical Washington politician.
He broke with his economic principles a long time ago, and he’s been reaching out to the neocons for some time now.
He had a back-and-forth with the folks at COMMENTARY(the neocon temple) a few weeks back, an exchange with Jonathan Tobin where Tobin kept demanding that he crawled a little more, and Rand kept crawling until even Tobin was satisfied.
But yes, quite telling.
According to Press tv “Senator Rand Paul has called for a reduction of American foreign aid, even to allies like the Israeli regime during his visit to Israel. Here..http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/07/282301/us-senator-calls-for-israel-aid-cut/
Hummm…this is going to be interesting….he will be kicked out the libertarian circles if he goes all Israeli and Iran.
Morphing,. morphing, morphing…..on ideology and issues seems to be the political career strategy……creates most of the time a very incoherent or overboard position that loses a portion of party voters that you need.
Maybe Rand thinks he can lead a Tea Party pivot from opposition to foreign entanglements …humm, I don’t know though, even if he does that with TP politicians it won’t go down well with your typical tea party and libertarian voters.
If this is about Rand aiming for a Presidency he evidently didn’t learn anything from Mitt’s fail.
“his son is basically summed up as a typical Washington politician.”
Can’t argue with that, but you gotta admit, a doctor who certified himself to practice through his own spurious ophthalmological board is a little out of the common run in DC. Sorta hearkens back to the patent-medicine days.
Rand Paul is no Ron Paul. He doesn’t get my vote, although I suspect he is walking a fine line here.
He just announced to Israel that America couldn’t be its friend if it was broke, and so we need to eliminate foreign aid to everyone, including Israel, but starting with Israel’s enemies. I think he believes that if he cuts off the money supply, it may cripple the lobby. He is clearly not wanting to antagonize the lobby. It will be interesting to see if he pulls it off.