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The Saddest Ad of 2016 (So Far)
Sen. Rand Paul entered the GOP Primary with high hopes. He was the candidate who could represent the rising libertarian-ish wing of the party; those people skeptical of government in taxes and spending, but also in foreign intervention and the excesses of our criminal justice system. He would attract the sizable remnant of Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns, but wouldn’t be saddled with dad’s kooky baggage.
Rand would appeal to the budget-cutters in the Tea Party as well as the young, disaffected, and apolitical. He would even reach out to inner city communities and minorities who had long been written off by the GOP establishment as unreachable.
Alas, what could have been. Instead, here is an official ad that his official campaign just released. Officially.
The video appears to have been created with a type-to-text animation program, similar to Xtranormal. This explains the stilted language and odd pronunciations: “Where does the Ted Cruzz get his money … The Goldmain Sachs … we need to Audit the Ted.”
In a message ostensibly pushing libertarian arguments on monetary policy, Rand levels Bernie Sanders style accusations about campaign finance and capitalist perfidy. Considering the 2.3 percent he’s pulling in the polls, numbers so low he was left out of the GOP main debate, it might be time for Rand to close up shop and audit the campaign that produced this dismal ad.
Published in General
Dig deep enough into a lot of espoused libertarians (especially modern ones) and you’ll find a socialist hiding in there.
Is Rand Paul still running? Who knew.
I think that means he couldn’t find, or afford, any actors willing to read that dialogue.
This tested well with the 8-year-old demographic, and a lot of them promised to bug mommy and daddy to vote for Rand.
This would hardly be passable for a state legislature race. It looks cheap and sounds like it was written by someone not fluent in English.
I thought it was a very effective ad. It appeals to the libertarian inclined.
Can’t wait for his next add . . .
“The Ted Cruzz have money and voters, me have neither. Waaaaaaah! Vote for me.
I am a stick figure meant to resemble Rand Paul and I approve of this message.”
Jon,
This appeals to Libertarian well-informed voters. That can’t be a very high percentage of even the Republican vote. Unfortunately, Paul is highlighting why Trump exists. We need to win a general election with whatever votes we can get. Paul’s appeal is too narrow. He didn’t come across well in debate. He wasn’t able to take Trump down and he wasn’t able to put his message across. He began to get angry about it and that was the end of it.
Regards,
Jim
Could this be intended as a joke?
And what might be the specific political thinking behind attacking Ted Cruz? (As opposed to one of the other candidates?)
This has got to be the winner of a very under-promoted contest for kids to make a video promoting Paul.
There is absolutely no other excuse.
I think there is much to seriously consider about the libertarian agenda and include in the discussion. I had high hopes for Rand Paul to make a 21st century case. He seems less serious than his father.
I think there is much less libertarianism in the Republican Party than people think. It’s disappointing, but no less true.
Considering that a) the real world won’t stand for a “moat foreign ‘policy'”, and b) you need to act the way you talk regarding health care instead of working covertly behind the scenes to protect Congress from ObamaCare, I’d say that Rand is right where he belongs.
Today I received a mailer attacking John Kasich from Right to Rise, the superPAC backing JEB Bush. That’s the saddest ad.
When he starts attacking Jim Gilmore, then it is all over.
Setting his policy beliefs aside for a moment, I just don’t think Paul appeals on the personal level. He comes across (at least to me) as whiny and humorless.
With few exceptions (e.g., Nixon), a presidential candidate has to have personal appeal (Reagan and Clinton certainly had it, and Bush the Elder and Younger had enough of it; Obama was able to fake it).
Paul just seems to lack something.
Rubio and Cruz certainly have it. Trump, as much as I dislike him, has his own way of appealing to others.
This is one reason I think Hilary will ultimately fail. She just doesn’t connect.
Does anyone have a better handle on what Cruz supposedly did? I read that he took out a “margin loan” from his Goldman Sachs investment account, and then loaned those funds to his campaign. I assume that a “margin loan” means that he was borrowing against his own investment portfolio, like a 401k loan.
If this is correct, then shame – no, double secret shame – on Rand Paul for suggesting that this is some sort of special interest dealing with Goldman Sachs. It sounds like the sort of access to funds commonly available to customers at most investment companies.
Oh, and the ad is pathetic, even if Cruz were guilty of everything implied.
There were two loans–one from Goldman and one from Citi. The Goldman loan was collateralized like a margin loan, but I’m not sure about the Citi loan. The sticking point is that Cruz put them on his Senate financial disclosure info., but did not report them to the Federal Election Commission, which he should have done. I’m guessing that this isn’t overly serious or the press would be pounding on it hourly.
From what I recall of the Paul ad, above, it did not distinguish between receiving Wall St. “money” and Wall St. “loans.”
TR, I get the impression he doesn’t want it that bad.
It’s sort of a trope for libertarians and Austrian economists to explain difficult concepts with those computer read videos. I think it’s a little self-referential joke at Rand’s expense. That being said, the content is a bit sad. It’s really in keeping with Rand’s self-perception, though. Everyone in Washington is bought and paid for except him. I think the ad was supposed to be lighthearted but came across as pathetic.
The more m0ney Mike Murphy spends before the inevitable Jeb crash the more he personally makes…
Speaking as someone who really likes Rand Paul and has contributed to his campaign, that ad was just dreadful.
I have a terrible feeling that ad is some kind of inside joke or something that maybe 3 or 4 people would get, but anybody else will just see it as WTF?
The computer generated animations have been a sort of thing in economic conservative/libertarian circles. I went for a quick Youtube search but couldn’t find any of those that I saw a few years back. It’s a pretty weird trope to use for an ad that’s going to be circulated generally. If Rand ever had a chance, the ISIS attacks scuttled it – isolationist foreign policy not going to be a popular flavor this year.
I’m not going to embed it, but here’s one on Bernanke.
haha “Bernank.” And note it was uploaded six years ago.
Are those bears or pigs? And what’s with the Pilgrim suit? It’s more amusing than the Rand Paul ad in a bizarre way, but I still didn’t make it all the way through.
The add borrows from a stream of similar and riotously funny anti fed adds from several years ago. This one isn’t funny, just angry. As to the substance. I don’t want to audit the fed just remove most of its regulatory power and reduce it’s policy goal to one, price stability following a rule they can’t change.
Sadly they are both more articulate and possess sounder syntax than Jeb Bush.