{"id":8844,"date":"2015-04-07T13:51:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T13:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8844"},"modified":"2015-04-07T13:51:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T13:51:42","slug":"sen-paul-most-interesting-gop-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8844","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Paul: most interesting GOP candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ll lay my bet down now that Rand Paul is going to be the most interesting and provocative Republican running for president in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t like the U.S. senator from Kentucky when he first burst onto the scene. I like him better now. It&#8217;s not that I plan to <em>vote<\/em> for him next year if he gets the GOP nomination. He does have some interesting ideas to share with Americans.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/republican-rand-paul-announces-2016-presidential-run-on-website\/ar-AAaxxuJ<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s already announced on his website that he&#8217;s going to run. He has an event planned later today in his home state to make official.<\/p>\n<p>He wants to return the nation to the &#8220;principles of liberty and limited government.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Well, damn! Isn&#8217;t that original?<\/p>\n<p>Actually, though, his view of libertarianism encompasses a wide swath of issues.<\/p>\n<p>He suggests favoring marijuana legalization. I&#8217;m wondering what he&#8217;s going to say down the line about assisted suicide and abortion. His foreign policy doctrine looks to be of an anti-war bent, unlike so many of the TEA party members of his party who seem all too willing to start dropping bombs and (please pardon this hideous euphemism) placing American &#8220;boots on the ground&#8221; to assist in every regional conflict on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>Paul didn&#8217;t distinguish himself during the Senate Benghazi hearings when he scolded then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the confusion that erupted in the firefight at the U.S. consulate in Libya. &#8220;If I had been president,&#8221; Paul said, he would have fired Secretary Clinton on the spot.<\/p>\n<p>I thought at that moment: <em>Oh &#8230; please.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But the man&#8217;s occasional quirkiness and interesting take on domestic and international affairs has piqued my curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>With that &#8212; run, Rand, run!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll lay my bet down now that Rand Paul is going to be the most interesting and provocative Republican running for president in 2016. I didn&#8217;t like the U.S. senator from Kentucky when he first burst onto the scene. I like him better now. It&#8217;s not that I plan to vote for him next year &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8844\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sen. Paul: most interesting GOP candidate<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[73,589,1941,2139,2782,3822,4398,4531],"class_list":["post-8844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-2016-campaign","tag-benghazi","tag-gop","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-libertarianism","tag-rand-paul","tag-state-department","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}