WHAT is Rand Paul smoking?

Since 1968, there have been eleven elections for US president. Seven of those featured a candidate espousing a free market message beating a statist candidate.  That’s 28 out of the last 46 years with our country being governed by candidates voicing support for limited government.

In 1994 and 2010, candidates espousing free market concepts won majorities in the Congress.  In 1992, a president who had won four years earlier talking a good free market game lost his reelection bid mainly for selling out to the gods of statism.  In 2006, some folks lost their majority in Congress for the very same reason.

There is all kinds of evidence out there that the American people appreciate conservative, limited government, free market principles.  Yet, we have all kinds of Republican types swearing that we need to back off this whole conservative thing in order to get elected. (History calls B.S. on that.) 

Marco Rubio got elected to the US Senate with a lot of Tea Party help.  His swooning over the whole idea of amnesty has been a huge letdown.  Now, we have another Tea Party darling — Rand Paul of Kentucky — telling us we need to back off these silly notions of keeping convicted felons from voting and asking people for IDs in order to vote.  It’s insulting to black people, he says. 

Jay Delancy, of North Carolina’s Voter Integrity Project, has been fighting the good fight for clean elections in The Tar Heel State.  He and his merry  band of warriors have dug up all kinds of evidence of skullduggery and incompetence in the administration of elections. To put it nicely, Jay was not amused at Paul’s comments: 

Any war veteran from Iraq, Afghanistan or even Vietnam will tell you the only thing worse than enemy fire is so-called “friendly fire” or getting shot in the back by you own side; and that’s exactly what Senator Rand Paul did last Friday to the nationwide election integrity reform movement.

Paul’s colossal blunder, Friday, involved his comments on voter-ID law, giving credence to Progressive claims that voter ID “alienates and insults African-Americans and hurts the party.” He ignored the mounting evidence ofinterstate “double voting” and widespread voter-identity theft concerns in his attempt to curry favor from people who will never support him: The NAACP, Eric Holder and the vote fraud deniers who grow shriller every time another election fraud case is uncovered.

By wide margins, even low-information voters agree that requiring valid ID for “the sacred” constitutional right of voting is no more or less intrusive than showing valid ID for other constitutional rights like visiting a Congressman or buying a gun. Oh, and lest we forget, the Supreme Court even affirmed voter ID. […]

There is absolutely NOTHING unreasonable about proving exactly — and without a doubt — WHO YOU ARE.  Especially if you are trying to partake in a constitutionally-protected activity like voting. 

You expect to hear comments like Paul’s from lefties.  It’s tough when you hear someone — reportedly on your side — trumpeting those same talking points.

Convicted felons voting?  That leaves the door wide open for voter registration drives in prisons. Do you really want the guys in Cell Block D having a say in picking your community’s judges, prosecutors, and sheriffs? 

Paul made national news recently for a speech he made in Berkeley, CA that received a standing ovation.  Berkeley — as you may or may not know — is the Chapel Hill-Carrboro of the west coast.  Is it really a good thing for Republicans to be cheered by people who have long championed ideas that have led to murder, mayhem, starvation and economic and societal collapse around the world and across generations?

Our nation is in big trouble.  Tax cuts and shrinking the influence of government have proven, positive results.  The American people are starving for a champion to pick up that ball and run with it across the goal line.  Getting a standing-o in Berkeley may make for an interesting news clipping, but it doesn’t do a damn thing for turning around the mess afflicting our country.