More Trouble for Rand Paul as Super PAC Head Gets Indicted by Feds

The woes for Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul continue to mount as the head of a super PAC raising money for the Kentucky Senator has just been indicted by a federal grand jury. There has perhaps been no bigger disappointment than Paul in these early stages of the 2016 race for the White House and there have been reports of discord within his organization as well as a death spiral in the polls. It wasn’t long ago that Paul was seen as being the face of a new Republican party who had the crossover appeal to lure young and minority voters to the GOP to build a dominant coalition that could prevail for decades.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the future when Mr. Paul betrayed his earlier convictions to become just another cynical waffling flip-flopper who in trying to appease those who would never support him anyway alienated those who found him to be different. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Senator Paul’s latest troubles are chronicled by Politico in the story “Head of pro-Rand Paul Super PAC Indicted in Payment Scheme”:

Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign and its allies struck a defiant tone Wednesday, calling the Justice Department’s indictment of a longtime Paul confidant “suspiciously timed” for the eve of a presidential debate, while declining to address the substance of the charges.

“Senator Rand Paul is disappointed that the Obama justice department chose to release this just prior to the highly anticipated first Republican presidential debate,” said a campaign spokesman, who asked not to be identified. “It certainly appears suspiciously timed and possibly, politically motivated. Additionally, these actions are from 2012 and have nothing to do with our campaign.”

The confidant, Jesse Benton, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he bribed an Iowa state senator in 2011 to shift allegiances to Paul’s father, Ron, then a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Benton has recently been helming a super PAC supporting the younger Paul’s 2016 presidential bid.

Benton’s lawyers went further than Paul’s campaign, calling the charges “character assassination for political gain.”

“Jesse Benton, a prominent conservative Republican, has cooperated with the government during its multi-year investigation. That this indictment is now suddenly announced on the eve of the first Republican Presidential debate strongly supports our belief that this is a politically motivated prosecution designed to serve a political agenda, not to achieve justice,” his attorney, Meena Sinfelt, said in a statement. “Mr. Benton is eager to get before an impartial judge and jury who will quickly recognize this for what he believes it is: Character assassination for political gain.”

A call to Benton’s cellphone revealed that his voicemail box was full. He did not respond to an email request for comment.

And perhaps it is politically motivated, the Obama occupying government has certainly used it’s power to go after political foes in the past, most notably by unleashing the IRS against conservative tea party groups and the police state goons against the Occupy movement . But this has the appearance of more sloppy work by the Paul organization and yet another serious error that could end his run before it really starts.

Blaming the feds for the indictment of Jesse Benton smacks of the same type of distasteful whining that Paul displayed when he carped about all of the media coverage that was being given to Donald Trump and thereby depriving him of the attention that he feels he is deserving of. I always liked Ron Paul, whether you agreed with the old man or not you had to at least admire that he stood on principle and had a set of stones to go along with it. Too bad that the junior Paul hasn’t embraced his father’s legacy rather than run away from it, the apple has fallen very far from the tree in this case.

Fading Rand Paul Whines About Media Attention Given to the Donald

Senator Rand Paul, a man who once seemed a viable alternative to the imposition of big government fascism upon Americans is fading fast in the 2016 presidential horse race. It wasn’t that long ago that Paul was standing out from the pack with his taking on of the illegal and unconstitutional mass domestic surveillance programs undertaken by Emperor Obama’s NSA Stasi. His finest hour was mounting a principled defense against the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act, an anti-American enabling act and authoritarian wet dream that was crammed down the throats of a terrified populace in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

But Paul’s bizarre proclivity to feel a need to pander to those who will never support him anyway is now costing him dearly with those who saw him as a man who would dare to raise the important issues and to launch a crusade to restore our lost civil liberties. Now, with his organization gripped by internal strife, the Kentucky senator has been reduced to a sore loserman style of carping about how Donald Trump is getting all of the media coverage. Nobody likes a whiner and his doing so is only going to bite him in the ass.

CNN reports on Paul’s fall from grace in the story “Rand Paul: Media to blame for Donald Trump's surge in polls”:

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul blamed the national media Thursday for Donald Trump's vaulting to the front of the Republican pack in several recent polls.

"Television works, Wolf," Paul told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "If you would give some other candidates time from eight in the morning to eight at night all day long for three weeks, I'm guessing some other candidates might rise as well."

The most recent national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University found that Trump was well ahead of others in the 16-person field, with 20% support. Paul is jammed in with the second tier of Republican candidates earning between 4% and 6% support.

Blitzer asked Paul why his support was lagging right now. Paul immediately blamed the free airtime Trump was getting.

"So, for example, while some people are hearing about one candidate all the time, very few people know I've offered a tax code, that you could fill out your taxes on one page (at) 14.5%," Paul said. "So if I had a billion dollars' worth of advertising and every network going gaga over that, I think we could get our (poll numbers) to rise also."

But Paul took a longer view of the race and, like many Republicans, ultimately dismissed Trump.

"But there's going to be time for that," Paul said. "I think this is a temporary loss of sanity, but we're gonna come back to our senses and look for somebody to lead our country at some point."

The problem for Rand Paul is that once credibility is lost it is very difficult if not impossible to get it back, especially when you were the one who was supposed to be different. In all fairness though, he likely would have never even been in the running were it not for the appeal of his father, retired Congressman Ron Paul. People can say what they will about the old man but he had a set of principles and didn’t waver on them unlike his wishy-washy, flip-flopping son has done. Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo who was once one of Paul's biggest advocates takes him to the woodshed in his piece "Rand Paul: Fraud, Failure, Liar" that shows just how the sone of Ron has fucked over those who backed him to pander to the neocons. 

Senator Paul has worked so hard to play down any libertarian leanings that he has now alienated many supporters and his sacrificing of principle for the sake of political expedience hasn’t won him anything on the other side of the ledger in terms of any sort of broader appeal. He has effectively chopped off his own balls at this point and with his new spiel bearing little difference from a dozen or so others in the field it is going to be hard to regain the lost momentum.

Not that it is time to stick a fork in Paul’s ass and say he’s done just yet but when you combine his Clintonian triangulating with self-destructive moves like giving the cold shoulder to the billionaire Koch Brothers and their massive checkbook that time is coming sooner rather than later. If Paul has any serious aspirations to continue it is imperative that he shake up his organization and get back on message as soon as possible before it is too late.