Thanks, Rand

This week the senator from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Dr. Rand Paul, suspended his campaign for the presidency with a video and announcement that he was stepping away and returning to the Senate and his reelection effort there.

I must say that I regarded his action with a mix of feelings.  Dr, Paul had not been able to generate much of a percentage of the Republican caucus-goers and polled voters during his campaign.  He had performed pretty well in the debates, but in no case did the polling thereafter seem to reflect anything in the way of additional earned support.

So I could say that as long as the senator was not going to generate enough of a following to present a chance of winning the nomination, it is best that he step away and defend his Senate seat.  Anything else would be tilting at windmills and not a defensible pursuit.

But this is not Jim Gilmore or Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee.  This is Rand Paul.  And while I have the utmost respect for Gov. Huckabee and Sen. Santorum particularly, their candidacies did not have what I can only call "specific meaning" that will leave a gap as they leave the race.  Rand Paul most certainly left a gap.

Libertarianism is arguably a form of conservatism with one facet polished brighter.  It is conservatism, in that it is associated with limited government, but it acutely stresses the rights of the individual against, if you will, the government.  It is no accident that the name is based on the word "liberty", since libertarianism is all about freedom to live one's life as one sees fit, with minimal government intervention, and a minimalist approach to the global role of the USA.

And Rand Paul is the hero of the American libertarian, if anyone is.

Accordingly, Dr. Paul will be missed more than his fellow single-digit candidates; at least I will miss him.  Rand Paul had a way of keeping his competitors philosophically honest, and if you watched the debates you understand what I mean.  He was not my candidate, mind you, and I never considered if I would vote for him in the general election, because I never considered he might reach the general election.

But now, as he steps away, I am convinced that the tone of the debates will change somewhat.  Despite the arguments among the remaining candidates that currently are a-brewing in the press, their policy differences are surprisingly thin (Donald Trump's lack of specifics and tendency toward the marginal factor notwithstanding).  Rand Paul made a point of differentiating himself.

Dr. Paul's self-referential Twitter caption is typically terse: "I fight for the Constitution, individual liberty and the freedoms that make this country great."  Don't you love that?  I do not see a word of that that I find difference with.  I want my president to fight for the Constitution, for individual liberty and our freedoms.

I would find difference with him in areas such as foreign policy, where I believe that the USA does have a role in ensuring the growth of free governments around the world as nations' citizenries seek them.  Yet I agree heartily that "nation-building" is a delicate endeavor, and that the lessons of Tito's Yugoslavia, Saddam's Iraq, Khaddafi's Libya and now Assad's Syria teach us -- as Dr. Paul pointed out carefully in the debates -- that just getting rid of a dictator without a known capacity to implement a freely-elected replacement government is a fool's errand.

I would find difference with the senator in the extent to which the government can employ court-ordered data collection and tracking to protect the law-abiding citizen.  Perhaps, as I think of it, we're not that different there -- but there is a spectrum to be debated as to how far government can go and we're probably a bit apart there.

I would find great difference in regard to tobacco and drug policies.  I not only find smoking stupid and contemptible, but an entire industry (heavily at work in Kentucky) conspired to mask the effects of its products, which still kill 400,000 Americans prematurely each year.  And I find the whole pro-pot campaign, including the "medical marijuana" people, insanely hypocritical.  The good doctor and I would not concur there.

It does not matter.  The blessing of a presidential primary campaign is that there is indeed a forum for a national debate on issues important to our lives.  Rand Paul, bless him, brought a sound, well-thought-out presence to the debate floor against which the other candidates could lay out their differing views.

He will be missed, certainly by me, and I was not going to vote for him.  I value the time that he did put into the campaign and believe that he offered something for us to talk about as we decide on our candidate.

I'm grateful for his time in the race.  Thank you, Senator Paul.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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