It was a decision that devastated many of his hot-blooded young activists, but it was unquestionably the right one. Recent polls have Paul averaging ninth in next week’s New Hampshire Republican primary, behind even electoral dwarves like Carly Fiorina. South Carolina looks similarly bleak. Rather than disappear into the crowd, Paul departed on the highest note available. The acidic debater who so often needled his rivals decided his final act as a presidential candidate should be a classy one.
Already, the recriminations have begun. (Who are we kidding? These are libertarians. The recriminations began early last year.) How did the man who once polled in third place and was touted as the “most interesting man in politics” tumble so rapidly and vertiginously into single digits?
The least convincing explanation is the one proffered by neoconservatives: that the rise of ISIS made the public sour on Paul’s less aggressive foreign policy. If this were true, then avowed Russophile and fan of Bashar al-Assad Donald Trump wouldn’t be leading the pack, and cagey critic of “Washington neocons” Ted Cruz wouldn’t be placing second. The public may want to destroy ISIS, but that doesn’t mean they’ve signed on to the entire Project for a New American Century program.
Other critiques ricochet between the armchairs. The Paul campaign was too risk-averse. Paul botched the first few debates. Ted Cruz did Paul better than Paul did Paul. Team Paul was stacked with campaign hacks seeking résumé lines rather than victories. Paul triangulated too often. He wasn’t very good at raising money.
There’s something to each of those criticisms, especially the last two. Paul seemed most comfortable during the final days of his campaign, when he stopped appealing to Joe Q. Republican and unleashed his inner libertarian-ish freak. And it will forever mystify me how Paul, whose beliefs line up almost perfectly with those of the Koch brothers, failed to secure a lucrative sugar daddy.
But the best explanation for Paul’s rout may simply be that it was the wrong year. Had Paul run in 2012, even accounting for some mistakes, he probably would have secured the nomination and might very well be sitting in the White House right now. Back then, the right was still animated by the tea party and anti-government arguments were in vogue. Instead of fiddling with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, the conservative vote would have likely united behind Paul and overrun noted protocol droid Mitt Romney.
But this is the Year of Trump, prolonged from the Summer of Trump, and the tea party’s libertarian populism has given way to a primal howl into the wind. Hatred of immigrants and elites are the new litmus tests, and voters are clamoring for a strongman to administer them. Those of us who supported the old tea party are still adjusting. We sound like Dickens’ Charles Darnay upon returning to revolutionary France: “All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost.”
Donald Trump is the new beneficiary of this fury. He’s now singlehandedly steering the populist right into uncharted waters. Paul is angry too, but he doesn’t do anger as well as Trump. How can he? Republican candidates have been made to compete for television viewers with a television star.
It’s a damned shame. I still maintain, despite what happened yesterday, that Paul’s fusion of libertarian rabble-rousing and outreach to minorities is the GOP’s best hope. On criminal justice reform, Paul’s solutions are perfect for our War on Drugs-addicted era. On foreign policy, Paul was the only candidate who seemed at some point to have read a news article. Yes, establishing a no-fly zone in Syria would mean shooting down Russian aircraft. No, carpet bombing isn’t a thing we do anymore.
That sanity will be sorely missed. May Paul drub his Democratic challenger in Kentucky and make his presence known in the Senate. In a city of hacks and charlatans, he’s a rare good man.
Matt Purple is the Deputy Editor for Rare Politics (Rare.us).
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