The Ever-Morphing Rand Paul

[HiTemp]

A while back I was hesitant to back this guy though I thought he had some good ideas. This is why I don't feel you can trust a politician who isn't willing to lay his platform out for the voters clearly and unambiguously. If they don't, you can rest assured you're going to get a morph into something you weren't looking to support.

Rand Pauls veers off party line

Anyone, and I mean anyone, who tries to tell me that having an ID card to vote is an imposition is, ipso facto, an idiot. For that to be true, I have to believe the same supposedly impositioned people have no bank account, never travel on an airplane or AMTRACK, never get a driver's license, never stay in a hotel or motel, never purchase a firearm, never purchase alcohol or tobacco products, have never had any form of credit card, have never taken any class post high school, and those are just a few.

It makes NO sense to me that in order to exercise a STATE right, like drive on the roadway, you MUST show multiple forms of ID. Yet to exercise a FEDERAL, a Constitutional right, it doesn't matter if you are who you say you are, AND it doesn't matter if scammers or people otherwise prohibited from voting, vote. A true philosophical absurdity.

I do think we are slow to restore rights to SOME felons. I'd like to see a system where the restoration process is commensurate with the amount of sentence actually served. Someone gets 10 years and serves it day for day, they've paid the debt they owed and ought to have voting rights restored. But they get sentenced to 10 and serve 18 months because of overcrowding and "good behavior" while under strict supervision... naaawwww, that person ought not expect his rights to be restored right away. Maybe after 75% of their probation is served, providing it's been squeeky clean. But to just hand this over to the federal government for them to try and make one policy that fits all is a certain recipe for them to make a jumbled mess that suits only the most vocal minority and makes no sense in every other case.

At least Rand had the courtesy to make his leftward leap early enough for voters to assimilate that information. Now we have a better idea of how firmly this guy will hold to other things like gun control or taxation. Seems like it's all negotiable if only some group will say they like him.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

As with his father as well, I am split with being for and against his positions, and enough so I would likely not vote for him. I am mostly in favor of reducing sentencing for some simple drug possession charges. I also support restoring rights of felons who have served their penalty to have their rights restored in some cases as well. I think its a mistake to simply impose a policy or pass a law and leave it up to the bloated bureaucracy to make it work, because it simply won't.

But to not have to show ID to vote, why not? Such an important thing to keep our sovereignty through honest elections, and the clear undermining of that with the flood of illegals here, there should be no question, its simply should be required.

And his foreign policy is simply Obamas sans aiding the Muslim Brotherhood and we are living the result of that now, I am not sure how he can justify or ignore it. Non interventionism is isolationism, and there is a real world cost for that.

I was doubting him back before he started making policy statements because of his lack of support on some things, especially when he went soft on Obamacare other than lip service, now he is losing support from me unless its on specific issue we share ground on.

Ted Cruz has been rock steady on his stuff from the start, agree with him or not, you can the base is on principle, not polling.

[HiTemp]

That's exactly it... with Cruz, you know what's in the box before you buy it and take it home. That's all anyone really wants in a politician when it comes right down to brass tacks. Basically, tell me where you stand on what and I'll vote for the person whose views most closely reflect my own opinions. When they start Rand-ing about, all over the political map, first going one way then veering sharply the other way, how can anyone take them seriously that they will actually represent the folks whose votes put them in office?

I sure hope the R's have an October surprise this year else I'm thinking they aren't going to gain any ground at all and in fact might lose a good part of the house.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Nope, the GOP is going to pull defeat from almost certain victory, like what has become usual with them. Its what happens when you cease to became an alternative.