Washington Post
By Jaime Fuller
April 12, 2014
When
Rand Paul started speaking at the Freedom Summit in Manchester, N.H.,
Saturday, it was clear that the audience had been waiting for this all
morning. Earlier speeches
had been punctuated by intermittent laughs and boos at Jeb Bush and
Kathleen Sebelius alike, but the audience interaction was near constant
during the Kentucky senator's speech.
His
message at the summit mostly revolved around how to get his policies
and the concerns of the movement adopted by the Republican Party writ
large in a way that would
expand the population of people the GOP can appeal to.
The "poobahs in charge of the party who want to dilute our message," Paul said.
"I for one," Paul said. "I will not wilt in the face of adversity, I will stand and fight them at every point."
What
the party should do instead, he said, is expand their message. His
prescription for doing this, was unsurprisingly adopting more of his
stances of civil liberties
— fighting National Security Agency data collection and lessening
sentences for drug crimes, for example.
Fitting
in with Americans for Prosperity's focus on fiscal issues, he also had a
plan for how the Republican Party can attract new people with economic
issues and "hit
those who haven't been listening."
He said the Republican Party can't be "the party of fat cats, rich guys and Wall Street."
"Our movement has never been about plutocrats," Paul says, but that is how "the other side paints us."
He
said that the way his ideas on how to decrease unemployment resonated
with young people at the Conservative Political Action Committee --
where young libertarians make
up a considerable number of attendees -- and at Berkeley -- which he
sought to contrast as the home of young liberals -- were a sign that
they were ideas worth adopting for a party that needs to expand its
base.
These kids, he said, "they don't have money. We have to talk to people what they care about."
He
characterized the Obama administration as giving out "free stuff" and
yet not helping people get out of unemployment — a similar accusation to
the one Mitt Romney leveled
against the president during the 2012 presidential campaign
He
railed against other conservatives in Washington who say they are for
"revenue-neutral tax reform" and little else. "I want nothing to do the
timidity of revenue-neutral
tax reform," he said. "I want nothing to do with budgets that never
balance."
All
of these things, he summed up as "hogwash." He also called caring about
the Second Amendment and not the Fourth Amendment" was also "hogwash."
Many things he disagreed
with in Washington were dismissed as "hogwash," to the delight of the
crowd.
At a news conference after his speech, Paul discussed privacy issues in more depth.
He
said that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be vulnerable on privacy issues
during the 2016 presidential campaign, because of her role in the Obama
administration.
He
also answered questions about Jeb Bush's "act of love" comments on
immigration, which inspired boos from the Freedom Summit earlier in the
day, saying his "remarks
were well-intentioned. I don't fault him for that.
However, he added, you can't invite every person who loves someone in America to America, he added.
He
wouldn't speculate whether Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius's resignation was a result of 2014 midterm worries.
"She's tired and had to deal with some grief the past few months, I'm guessing," he said.
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