The Republican Establishment’s Fear Of The ‘L’ Word
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One day before Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tied with Jeb Bush to top yet another hypothetical GOP Presidential poll, potential Republican competitor Rick Santorum hatched a media strategy that’s likely to be widely duplicated in some GOP factions if Paul’s Presidential stock continues to rise: making “libertarian” sound like a dirty word.
As Santorum and just about every other Republican name brand knows, Rand Paul is not an outright libertarian — at least, not Rand Paul the Senator, GOP party member and possible Presidential candidate. He’s a fiscal conservative who strongly advocates for government to play no extra-Constitutional role in sorting out Americans’ civil liberties.
But he’s also Ron Paul’s son, and — for GOP establishment types, as well as the party’s conservative-right faction — that may turn out to be his greatest political liability through the 2016 primary season. He’s aware that a successful Presidential run will necessarily require casting a wider net, striking a tone with dispassionate voters that isn’t strident. He’s also aware that getting elected President is virtually impossible without persuading stalwart donor titans that he has a steady hand on their apple cart. In his talking points, his speech on foreign policy and individual liberties (drugs, homosexuality, religious freedoms) is restrained and, at times, politically vague in a way his father’s speech never was.
But even Paul’s deference to civil liberties, or the mere shadow of his father’s strongly polarizing legacy, is enough fodder for conservatives — like Santorum — who’ve shown the early signs of ascending along the GOP’s establishment path to political fortune. Late Monday, Santorum made sure to put as much distance between that dirty “L” word and his brand of Republican conservatism as possible, telling CNN “the Republican Party is not a libertarian party.”
No kidding. But the message he sent was more subtle: There’s no room in Santorum’s Republican Party for ostensible “libertarians” like Rand Paul.
We’ve trod this ground before. Last summer, back when the implications of the GOP’s new-blood insurgency were even murkier for 2016, Personal Liberty’s Sam Rolley discussed how the very idea of libertarianism can fracture the party:
The reason the GOP isn’t packed with politicians like Paul, Ted Cruz (Texas) and Justin Amash (Mich.) is because establishment Republicans are fond of accusing any lawmaker who dares question government’s power of having “libertarian ideas.” And it’s certainly an effective strategy, packing a one-two punch that makes foreign policy hawks balk at the idea of a Federal government unwilling to stick cannon in the face of any nation brazen enough to question American imperialism — and giving religious-right conservatives nightmares about a GOP moving toward accepting gays, abortions, drugs and all-out godlessness.
Santorum’s tactic for resisting even a little bit of libertarianism in the GOP is to anoint it an enemy and then charge straight at it. And it looks like the libertarian enemy in the Republican Party is going to be Rand Paul — not because he’s a dogmatic libertarian, but because his GOP detractors believe in the vote-swaying power of his perceived baggage.
“He’s not my leader, I can tell you that for sure,” Santorum said. “His father and I had some disagreements during the last campaign.”
At this point, Ron Paul could publicly disown his son, but it wouldn’t matter. The far political right is determined to steer Rand Paul’s political career into his father’s long, indelible shadow.
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