Rand Paul has joined the list of Republican ‘also ran’ candidates for this cycle. Like Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham the Kentucky Senator has ended his campaign. He has the dubious privilege of actually surviving long enough to be rebuffed by the electors of Iowa, many of the others having had their candidacies strangled virtually at birth either by incompetence or The Donald sucking down all the metaphorical oxygen with a kleptomaniacal relentlessness.

 

Who Cares?

Well, i’m sure the people of Kentucky will be delighted to have their Senator back. Laws, rules and regulations were all bent and altered to allow Rand this run. After sacrificing so much, going to such great lengths to simply pursue the presidency his failure must be galling. But this raises a question crucial to this whole presidential cycle. His father, Ron Paul, achieved considerable success in Iowa. In 2008 Paul Superior got 21% in Iowa, within 5 points of victory. So where is all that support now? Where is the libertarian, small government, non-interventionist wing of the party we all saw grow in the post-Bush years? There were patchy performances on the part of Rand at some of the debates to be sure, but this hardly explains shrinking the family escutcheon in Iowa by three-quarters, down to a measly four percent. Especially because Rand was meant to be a younger, more forceful, more establishment-friendly and ultimately more electable version of his father.

So why didn’t he do better?

The sad truth is that the Republican primary electorate this year is not buying what the Saints Paul are selling. Medieval Islamist psychopaths are despoiling the cradle of civilization, Russia is nicking off with parts of other countries it likes the look of and America is being ruled over by a radical socialist hell bent on making the USA into Sweden. Now here comes Rand to talk about cutting back on the military, isolationism and civil liberties. Anger is the dominant emotion of this campaign. People are after a tribune to go crack some heads wherever heads need cracking. Randbot simply does not ship with such functionality.

What happens next?

The first major public poll of New Hampshire since Iowa comes out. Paul and Huckabee, both now gone from the race, had a combined total of 3 percent in the Granite state. Not much, but each narrowing of the field means more voters forced back into the undecided box. That box will be emptied shortly, and minds will have to be made up. They can’t choose Paul any more, so who will it be? And who will drop out next? The endless drama continues.

 

P.S. My money is on Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. To be honest, i don’t understand why he hasn’t announced it already. Or perhaps he did and nobody noticed.