Post by Logan on Jan 20, 2016 17:20:49 GMT -6
Fading Presidential Hopes Complicate Rand Paul’s Senate Re-Election Bid
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Memo from home to Senator Rand Paul: Be careful what you wish for.
Back when Mr. Paul, the curly-haired libertarian darling with the snappy fashion sense, was still a hot presidential prospect, he hatched a plan to skirt a state law barring candidates from being on two ballots at once. If Kentucky Republicans staged a caucus — à la Iowa — to pick their presidential nominee, Mr. Paul could seek the party’s nomination for the White House and re-election to the Senate, too.
“It doesn’t really pass the smell test, running for two offices at once,” said Jim Skaggs, a longtime Republican official and neighbor of Mr. Paul here, describing the initial reaction from the party establishment, which acquiesced in the end. “It was very skeptical, to say the least.”
Now, Mr. Paul’s presidential campaign is in the tank, with poll numbers so dismal he was kicked off the main stage of the Republican presidential debate last week in North Charleston, S.C. But even if Mr. Paul were to drop his presidential bid, his name would remain on the ballot in the Kentucky caucus on March 5. Some in the state say he risks losing a contest that he himself engineered — a development that could prove embarrassing in his other race, the one for the Senate.
Continued at www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/rand-paul-president-senate-bid.html .
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Memo from home to Senator Rand Paul: Be careful what you wish for.
Back when Mr. Paul, the curly-haired libertarian darling with the snappy fashion sense, was still a hot presidential prospect, he hatched a plan to skirt a state law barring candidates from being on two ballots at once. If Kentucky Republicans staged a caucus — à la Iowa — to pick their presidential nominee, Mr. Paul could seek the party’s nomination for the White House and re-election to the Senate, too.
“It doesn’t really pass the smell test, running for two offices at once,” said Jim Skaggs, a longtime Republican official and neighbor of Mr. Paul here, describing the initial reaction from the party establishment, which acquiesced in the end. “It was very skeptical, to say the least.”
Now, Mr. Paul’s presidential campaign is in the tank, with poll numbers so dismal he was kicked off the main stage of the Republican presidential debate last week in North Charleston, S.C. But even if Mr. Paul were to drop his presidential bid, his name would remain on the ballot in the Kentucky caucus on March 5. Some in the state say he risks losing a contest that he himself engineered — a development that could prove embarrassing in his other race, the one for the Senate.
Continued at www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/rand-paul-president-senate-bid.html .