2016 POLL: Rand Paul, darling of wingnuts across the political spectrum, now leads the pack.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

PPP's newest look at the Republican field for 2016 finds some big changes from our previous polling. Marco Rubio, who had led all of our polling since December, has dropped all the way to 6th place.Rand Paul now has the lead nationally, to go along with the leads he posted in our most recent Iowa and New Hampshire polls. And Ted Cruz has already hit double digits.

The numbers are: Paul 16, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Paul Ryan each at 13, Cruz at 12, Rubio at 10, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal at 4, and Susana Martinez at 2. Cruz has proven to be such a darling to the far right that he actually already leads among 'very conservative' voters with 20% to 18% for Paul and 17% for Ryan. Christie gets 24% with 'moderate' identifying Republicans but doesn't do better overall because he's at just 7% with 'very conservative' ones.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2013/07/25/2016-poll-rand-paul-leads-pack-rubio-plummets-n1649023





The libertarian fringe of both parties should give themselves a big pat on the back for putting this kook on a pedestal.

[PennsylvaniaMatt]

1. I've said since his filibuster and CPAC in March...

That if he runs, he will be their nominee. That is always subject to change, but that's how it looks to me three years out.

[bunnies]

4. And if he's the nominee...

Ill be glad NH only has 4 EV's. Theres quite a libertarian streak here.

[bigwillq]

2. In 2013. Call me when it's 2015.

So much can happen between now and then.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Ain't it fascinatin'? Thanks Ms. Benjamin, you're a real peach.

Do I really need this?

[freshwest]

15. See? 'Rand Paul is a Uniter, not a Divider.' Hugs and kisses. Yeah, that's what I meant to say...

Instead of 'Ughs and pisses.'
Stop me, Tarheel, before I pun again.

[Tarheel_Dem]

27. Pun Away!

[SunSeeker]

5. Don't forget, he also has Aqua Buddha behind him!

[bunnies]

6. Of course he is.

Its like a perfect storm for him right now. And he could definitely take NH in the primaries. Yay.

[Bandit]

7. I can't believe Code Pink would get behind such a man...

I had higher expectations of them....In fact I adore Code Pink but if they follow this man they will lose any support I might have given them.

[avaistheone1]

21. I think they support his stand on privacy issues as many Democrats do as well.

I don't think they are endorsing Rand Paul for president.

I support the Fourth Amendment. If Rand Paul supports it too, then I support him on THIS issue. BTW I am a lifelong progressive Democrat, and not a Libertarian.

[geek tragedy]

43. Would you draw him a Valentine heart? nt

[avaistheone1]

45. Probably not.

My take on the Valentine heart is that Code Pink is communicating they strongly favor Rand Paul's position on the current spying issues. That is all. I see nothing wrong with their action.

As I stated, I strongly favor his position on these issues as well. However, I passionately disagree with Rand Paul on his other issues.

[NuclearDem]

49. Exactly.

I can't believe I have to explain the concept of a multi-axis model of the political spectrum again, but here goes:



People can disagree vehemently on economic issues, but even socialists who fall into the lower left quadrant have a lot in common with laissez-faire capitalists who fall into the lower right quadrant, simply because both groups are considered civil libertarians (versus civil authoritarians in the top quadrants).

"Civil libertarian" doesn't mean "Libertarian Party"--the LP is lower right quadrant territory. Socialists like me with civil libertarian leanings (lower left) agree with the LP on civil rights and social issues, but just about nothing else.

[sabrina 1]

46. They didn't 'get behind him'. They agree with his position on surveillance, and so do

several elected Democrats who have also praised him for his stand on the issue. Should we throw everyone away who dares to acknowledge when someone agrees with them on an issue just because they are not part of our 'team'? How small-minded and self-destructive that would be.

[woo me with science]

8. Easy fix for Democrats.

Become the party that will eliminate the surveillance state and the warmongering, *AND* ensure that social safety nets are strengthened rather than cut.

[Puzzledtraveller]

30. ^^this^^

[woo me with science]

36. It's just inconceivable, isn't it.

Such a wasted opportunity.

[JaneyVee]

31. Is that what we're pretending Rand Paul will do now?

[woo me with science]

33. It's irrelevant to the point whether he does or not.

What's pathetic is that he is able to draw support by "claiming" he will do so, and stealing issues that the Democratic Party should OWN, lock, stock, and barrel.

Democrats should be looking in a damned mirror and asking why our party does not take the lead on all these things, instead of toadying up to corporate authoritarians.

[JaneyVee]

35. He's not drawing support from Dem voters. Anyone with half a brain knows this

Guy is full of complete shit. He said he would drone liquor store robbers.

[woo me with science]

47. "He's not drawing support from Dem voters."

"He's not drawing support from Dem voters."

Irrelevant, not to mention questionable.

The point is that the Democratic Party has put itself in the shameful position of needing to attack a Libertarian who *claims* to stand for issues the Democratic Party should own, because it can't seem to pull its own politicians out of the pockets of banks and corporations long enough to own them itself.

[dionysus]

52. no, but support from a lot of geniuses on DU...

[arely staircase]

37. Rand Paul getting the namination is a Democratic wet dream

not something in need of fixing, something to hope for and encourage.

[MindPilot]

42. Yeah, kinda.

My first thought reading the OP was "so whose fault is that?"

[pscot]

9. A Rand Paul/Ted Cruz ticket

Would have them baying at the moon.

[moondust]

14. And here they are in Iowa already!

Surprise!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/ted-cruz-rand-paul-iowa_n_3625634.html

[Blue Owl]

10. Stand with Rand? Fall with Paul.

n/t

[freshwest]

16. Good meme! n/t

[Scurrilous]

11. K & R

[Zoeisright]

12. He'll be easy to beat.

Not only because he's a whiny little turd.

[Mojorabbit]

20. Yep nt

[Jamaal510]

13. His father

was near the top of my list of preferred wingnut nominee in 2012. I just wanted the satisfaction of seeing Ron Paul get thoroughly trounced by Obama in the general election, just so those Internet-warrior libertarians would've had to accept the reality that the vast majority of Americans don't like their ideas and see them as fringe weirdos. It would have been so much more fun for me to see Obama clown him in the debates and for him to squirm to explain his stance on things like his opposition to the Civil Rights Act and how he once said that people should be able to drink spoiled milk.

[freshwest]

38. It would have been an educational experience and prevented them demoralizing some now.

These elections aren't as much about the candidates as they are about policy. And what the Pauls and their followers on both sides of the aisle want, will kill people and destroy the USA. We are going through another states' rights era in politics, but no one wants to talk about it except in single issues.

That's not what it's about since it's really an assault of equality under the law for all as their birthright as Americans. That is what Obama and Democrats believe in. Paul and Libertarians don't believe in that, they want freedoms based on wealth only.

[Rex]

17. Good! Easy to beat a banana monkey waffler.

We could probably just run a cutout of our candidate and Rand would still lose in a landslide. I hear Rick Perry is thinking of running again, bless that stupid SOB for trying to think.

[arely staircase]

18. perfect, Christie is probably the only electable one in there

Maybe Jeb but I think his last name still carries too much baggage. But Christie really is their best bet in that group and GOP primary voters hate him for cooperating with the Democratic president during a natural disaster in his own state - that is how nuts they are, so of course Aqua-Buddha- I think restaurants should be able to deny service to black folk hair piece is leading the pack.

hurray for teh crazy!

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. I don't believe the Republican neoconservative establishment will support him in a general election

if he were to win the nomination. Of course they may officially support him - but it would be a bit like the cold shoulder that Barry Goldwater got from the Republican establishment in 1964 or George McGovern got from the Democratic Party establishment in 1972. Hawkish and interventionist foreign policy is as part and parcel to established Republican assumed policy as lower taxes on the wealthy.

[flamingdem]

22. Lovely

I just can't decide who I like better Paul or Cruz, yeah baby!

[Fire Walk With Me]

23. Everything, absolutely everything the Pauls do is selfish and calculated. Fuck them. n/t

[struggle4progress]

25. 16% !!! I do hope we see another 2012 with the whackjobs jostling to see if anyone can break 20%

[Proud Public Servant]

26. I don't especially want to see Hillary as our nominee

But if she is, the Clinton Paul debates are going to be freakin' hilarious. Popcorn's on me!

[sufrommich]

28. I am not the least bit surprised. If he gets the GOP nom

I expect a lot of useful idiots will be voting for him.

[Savannahmann]

29. When the NSA stories broke

I said that our determination to support the immoral and illegal spying would hand Rand the nomination. I was informed that Hillary would whip his ass. Are we still so certain that President Rand Paul is an impossibility?

[geek tragedy]

40. Yes. Hillary mauled him when Paul tried to get in her grill during Senate hearings.

He's an assclown with a bad haircut.

http://www.taylormarsh.com/blog/2013/01/clinton-conquers-republicans-ron-johnson-and-rand-paul-crushed/

[Bake]

32. If he's their nominee, WE WIN.

Simple as that. He's an idiot who will not withstand the scrutiny of the national presidential campaign stage. We could run almost anybody (except Wiener ...) and win.

Bake

[JaneyVee]

34. Ah yes, Mr. Drone-a-liquor-store-robber.

[freshwest]

39. At the rate things are going, Rand doesn't need your stinkin' votes! Banana republicans forvever!

Here's the version without commentary:

You can overthrow government and auction everything off to the Koch brothers by several ways.

First, by denying others a voice in voting by oppressive regulations and misinformation.

Second, by impoverishing people through defunding government's ability to stand between predatory capitalists and their prey.

Third. by non-stop propaganda against that government to make people give in to the fascism they promote by default, allowing the church and business interests to run wild in the public and private lives of people.

Fourth, is just shooting people or intimidation, doing that banana republican routine so obvious in the videos. These displays of armed force across the nation are designed to shut people up and let these who presume to act as our 'betters' or as they call themselves, 'patriots' who would run our lives into the ground.

Those of us in the 'Look! The Emperor Has No Clothes' brigade would call them 'bullies' and not patriots.

Please note the familiarity of the speakers with the entire Infowars universe, a Bircher production. They have learned the lessons the Koch brothers paid for, very well.

Rand Paul is the elected version of Adam Kokesh and the rest of the gang who want to bring the Old South back. And at this point, we must ask supporters, just like those of Ron Paul:

...See, believe it or not, judgment matters. If a man believes there is a straight line of unbroken tyranny betwixt the torture and indefinite detention of suspected terrorists on the one hand, and anti-discrimination laws that seek to extend to all persons equal opportunity, on the other, that man is a lunatic. Worse than a lunatic, that man is a person of such extraordinarily obtuse philosophical and moral discernment as to call into real question whether he should even be allowed to go through life absent the protective and custodial assistance of a straightjacket, let alone hold office. That one might believe in unicorns would still allow one to profess a level of sagacity and synaptic activity in one’s brain several measures beyond that of the man who thinks liberty is equally imperiled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as by the CIA.

That any liberal, progressive or leftist could waste so much as a kind word about someone as this is mind-boggling. There are not many litmus tests for being a progressive in good standing in this country, but one would think, if there were, that surely to God, civil rights would be one of them. It is one thing to disagree about the proper level of taxation, either on the wealthy or corporations: honest people can disagree about that, and for reasons that would still permit one to claim the mantle of liberalism or progressivism; so too with defense spending, drug policy, trade, education reform, energy policy, and any number of other things. But the notion that one can be a progressive, even merely liberal, while praising someone who believes that companies should be allowed to post “No Blacks Need Apply” signs if they wish, and that only the market should determine whether that kind of bigotry will stand, is so stupefying that it should render even the most cynical of us utterly bereft of words. It is, or should be, a deal-breaker among decent people.

And please, Glenn Greenwald, spare me the tired shtick about how Paul “raises important issues” that no one on the left is raising, and so even though you’re not endorsing him, it is still helpful to a progressive narrative that his voice be heard. Bullshit. The stronger Paul gets the stronger Paul gets, period. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger libertarianism gets, and thus, the Libertarian Party as a potential third party: not the Greens, mind you, but the Libertarians. And the stronger Paul gets, the stronger become those voices who worship the free market as though it were an invisible fairy godparent, capable of dispensing all good things to all comers — people like Paul Ryan, for instance, or Scott Walker. In a nation where the dominant narrative has long been anti-tax, anti-regulation, poor-people-bashing and God-bless-capitalism, it would be precisely those aspects of Paul’s ideological grab bag that would become more prominent. And if you don’t know that, you are a fool of such Herculean proportions as to suggest that Salon might wish to consider administering some kind of political-movement-related-cognitive skills test for its columnists, and the setting of a minimum cutoff score, below which you would, for this one stroke of asininity alone, most assuredly fall.

I mean, seriously, if “raising important issues” is all it takes to get some kind words from liberal authors, bloggers and activists, and maybe even votes from some progressives, just so as to “shake things up,” then why not support David Duke? With the exception of his views on the drug war, David shares every single view of Paul’s that can be considered progressive or left in orientation. Every single one. So where do you draw the line? Must one have actually donned a Klan hood and lit a cross before his handful of liberal stands prove to be insufficient? Must one actually, as Duke has been known to do, light candles on a birthday cake for Hitler on April 20, before it no longer proves adequate to want to limit the overzealous reach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Exactly when does one become too much of an evil fuck even for you? Inquiring minds seriously want to know...

http://www.timwise.org/2012/01/of-broken-clocks-presidential-candidates-and-the-confusion-of-certain-white-liberals/

Rand is no different than Ron. He and the Libertarians and want this government gone so their sponsors can steal America. EOM.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023321236#post3

I grew up hearing (not from my family, thank god) that not only did 'Might Makes Right' but 'White Makes Right.' Ain't going back there. No, nope, nah!

[Comrade Grumpy]

41. I hope he does well in the primaries. The GOP will implode.

[Comrade Grumpy]

44. P.S. Nice gratuitous jab at Code Pink.

The anti-war group was thanking him for filibustering on drone warfare. It should have been a Democrat.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

48. Any group that holds a sign in support of Rand Paul is a fucking joke. nt

[Hydra]

54. The fact that they need Libertarian support to defeat illegal policies

Is the real joke here.

[Bluenorthwest]

57. Obama held up his support and affection for Tom Coburn in Time Magazine...

is he also a fucking joke for public praise of anti gay, anti choice, anti science Tom Coburn or do you only criticize certain people when they have common ground with a Republican? Obama seems pretty clear that they agree on little but when they do they work well and their wives are pals and OK is lucky to have Tom Coburn....read this and return to your selective outrage.

"after we entered the Senate at the same time, our wives, Michelle and Carolyn, hit it off at an orientation dinner. Pretty soon, we did too. Since then, we’ve bonded over family and faith. And we’ve harnessed our friendship and mutual respect to find places where we can agree and work together to move this country forward.

We co-sponsored the “Google for Government” act, which made government more transparent and more accountable to the American people. We worked together to cut down on earmarks. And we continue to agree on the need to reduce wasteful spending and close tax loopholes that benefit only the well-off and well connected.

The people of Oklahoma are lucky to have someone like Tom representing them in Washington — someone who speaks his mind, sticks to his principles and is committed to the people he was elected to serve.
http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/tom-coburn/

[NoPasaran]

50. Rick Perry apparently is in downtown Nowheresville

[Deep13]

51. Doesn't matter, the R establishment will have who it wants.

There is no democracy in the R party and precious little in the Ds.

[Initech]

53. Man if he even had a stone's throw of becoming president...

I'd seriously look at declaring myself an ex patriot and move to another country. Rand Paul is so fucking stupid he makes George Bush look like Lincoln by comparison. It'd be an absolute disaster if he won the primaries.

[Hydra]

55. lol

You're kidding, right? It's time for another Bush Dynasty Heir or puppet like Reagan. President Obama has kept the seat warm for him, kept all of the benefactors that will make it happen out of jail as well as keeping all of the illegal powers polished and in good working order.

Also, as Woo said, if the Dems were being Dems we'd be happily mocking Rand rather than hoping people like him will keep mucking things up for the NSA.

[Bluenorthwest]

56. Rand 'What's That On Your Head' Paul will not even be their nominee, I doubt

he could carry any State that is not attached to his own, like his pappy he's a fringe character and will remain so.
I think OP's like this one seek to promote him with this crazed and unsupported idea that he gets support from Democrats or liberals, which he does not. The OP wants that to be true, but it is not true, won't be true and he will fail to win his own insane Party's nomination. Those who see him as some entity to contend with have to be fans of his, Deputy Dawg with a Nutria on his head is not appealing to those who are not institutionalized or deeply right wing.
He's anti choice, he is deeply anti gay and not only opposed to equality, he wants a no equality amendment. He is against affirmative action in really racist ways and his environmental record is shitty as it gets.
I guess the sort of 'moderate Democrat' who could accept a Hagel who is also anti choice and anti gay and opposed to equality and affirmative action might dig Cotton Eye Rand but liberal people find him to be objectionable in the first division.