He's heading to South Carolina as well, subsequent to his Iowa and New Hampshire trips in May. Says CNN's lede, "To say Rand Paul is testing the 2016 waters would be an amusing understatement."
No doubt. The only question is, Why?
I was just playing with an interactive electoral map, and when allowing Paul the most liberal acquisition of states I could imagine, the results are a Democratic win, 358-180. In this count I give Paul the Old Confederacy (less FL, NC & VA), his home state, WV, IN, OK, MO, from KS up to ND, and of course UT, WY, MT, ID & AK.
Even by 2016 there's an outside chance Paul could lose TX & GA, rendering the count 412-126. Throw IN & MO back in the Dem column, and we're looking at a Paul loss of 433-105.
Of course given that we're talking about Rand Paul & Mouth, he could, conceivably, break 100--in the wrong direction.
Was that up against Hillary Clinton or just a nameless democrat?
Posted by: AnneJ | April 29, 2013 at 06:11 PM
Against Hillary, O'Malley, Cuomo, or Al Smith.
Posted by: PM | April 29, 2013 at 06:32 PM
And he lost against ALL of them? Wow, like you wrote about a week ago, 2016 is going to be pretty dull isn't it?
Posted by: AnneJ | April 29, 2013 at 06:35 PM
Don't tell him that. He's expecting to beat Monroe's electoral college victory.
Posted by: Peter G | April 29, 2013 at 06:52 PM
Ah, but you forgot to take into account all of the electoral college games the GOP might play between now and 2016.
Posted by: JTL | April 29, 2013 at 08:46 PM
There is a tendency to conflate Paul's political positions with those of the proverbial Tea Party and to conflate that with Limbaugh's "conservative Republicans. Is that true? Specifically, what part of the GOP does Paul truly represent?
He is virtually an isolationist on foreign policy and supports legalization of ALL drugs. As I recall, he supports dramatic cuts in the military.
I realize PM is making a larger simpler point about Paul, but it raises another question. How does any other GOP candidate win if they have to bring along Paul, his potential supporters and the other extremist who are at odds with Paul's idea of Republicanism?
What are the electoral projections when all the persuadable voters assume the GOP and Paul are one and the same/
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | April 30, 2013 at 08:47 AM