MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough declared Monday it was “fiction, fiction, fiction” that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., would be the 2016 Republican nominee for president.
Scarborough’s assessment was in response to a “Fact or Fiction” Q & A during which co-host Mika Brzezinski presented a series of political premises for discussion among the show’s panelists.
“What?” Brzezinski exclaimed, clearly surprised by Scarborough’s appraisal.
“He’s gonna do well in Iowa,” he said. “He’s gonna do well in New Hampshire. He may do pretty well in South Carolina. It’ll turn to the Midwest and he will be his father’s son.”
By “his father’s son,” Scarborough referred to Paul’s father Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns that failed because of his libertarian principles — especially isolationism.
Watch the exchange via the Washington Free Beacon:
Last Friday, Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, addressed that very issue — isolationism — in an op-ed he wrote for The Washington Post.
Perry opined that although the idea of turning our back to the Middle East is very tempting, it would intensify the threat of terrorism both here and abroad, and “would only endanger our national security even further.”
He then took a swipe at Paul:
That’s why it’s disheartening to hear fellow Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), suggest that our nation should ignore what’s happening in Iraq. The main problem with this argument is that it means ignoring the profound threat that the group now calling itself the Islamic State poses to the United States and the world.
CNN’s Peter Hamby reported the following day in a series of three tweets that the Paul camp took a swing back:
Rand Paul team swings back at Perry: “60,000 children just invaded Texas, and their Governor has time to write an op ed … ” (1/3)
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHambyCNN) July 12, 2014
“… in a Washington newspaper mischaracterizing Senator Paul’s foreign policy … ” (2/3)
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHambyCNN) July 12, 2014
“… in a Washington newspaper mischaracterizing Senator Paul’s foreign policy … ” (2/3)
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHambyCNN) July 12, 2014
In March, Paul was seen as the only Republican capable of besting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a presidential face-off, according to Newsmax, which then cautioned:
Polls don’t usually mean much this early in an election cycle. It’s usually all about name recognition. Former secretary of state and former first lady Hillary Clinton obviously leads among Democrats, with Vice President Joe Biden trailing far behind.
Hamby’s last tweet drew a lot of responses — most of which were along this line:
@PeterHambyCNN sorry to see Rand’s people being idiots
— Chris Estleton (@Estleton12) July 12, 2014
But it was a reply to his first tweet that I found most clever:
@PeterHambyCNN If Paul were a conservative or even a Republican, I might care. He’s a libertarian in Republican drag. @allahpundit
— crosspatch (@VictorB123) July 12, 2014
And that’s precisely what Scarborough was referring to Monday morning. Paul may call himself a a conservative, but when you peel away the layers, what you find at the core is a libertarian.
