Source: Smirking Chimp
President Rand Paul may not sound too catchy, but Rand Paul being the Republican nominee for president in 2016 could be the best thing that's happened to Democrats and our nation in a long time.
Political commentator Peter Beinart has a new piece in The Atlantic, where he writes that now that Chris Christie has been knocked out of the number one spot in the Republican Party, Rand Paul is now the likely front-runner for the Republican presidential nod in 2016.
Beinart writes that, "If Chris Christie was ever the frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, he isn't anymore...So if Christie is no longer the candidate to beat in the 2016 Republican race, who is? Believe it or not, it's Rand Paul."
He goes on to write that the 2016 election could turn out to be like the election of 1964, when the dark-horse, weird, fringe, ultra-conservative candidate, Barry Goldwater, became the Republican Party's nominee.
As Beinart puts it, "It's just possible that 2016 could be another 1964 or 1980, years when the Republican establishment proved weak and pliable enough to allow a candidate previously considered extreme to come in from the cold."
Beinart says the reason for this, in addition to the fact that Rand Paul has good polling numbers, is that there is an existing infrastructure of Paul support within the Republican Party, thanks to Ron Paul taking big chunks of support from Republicans in 2012.
Those people who were Ron Paul followers in 2012 are now Rand Paul supporters, and they're embedded in the Republican Party.
Basically, Rand Paul has a very good shot at becoming the Republican nominee for president in 2016.
So why is that such a good thing for Democrats and our nation?
He could force Democrats to move way to the left.
Rand Paul hates things like Social Security and Medicare. He thinks both programs should be handed over to Wall Street CEO's and health care executives, so that they can be privatized and made profitable.
He hates long-term unemployment benefits and opposes a minimum wage altogether.
He has even said that companies should be able to discriminate based on race, gender or sexual orientation.
Economically, he thinks everything should be privatized, with the only exceptions being the military, police forces and the judicial system.
And he is totally opposed to a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
But most people don't know that these are Paul's positions.
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