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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is adopting an old tactic of Hillary Clinton's, making a habitofworking across the aisle ahead of a presidential election.

Paul, a likely presidential candidate in 2016, has sponsored bills with Democratic colleagues on topics ranging from criminal justice reform to fiscal oversight of the Pentagon, apparently in an effort to broaden his appeal.

He could be helped in this regard by his overall worldview. Paul sees interventionism overseas and government surveillance at home through a skeptical lens, a position that is more common, overall, on the left than the right.

Still, Paul is best known to many people as a leader of the 2010 Tea Party revolution. Others recall that one of the first media firestorms he ignited was centered on his complicated view of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Conspicuous teamwork with Democrats in Congress could help him appeal to independents in next years primaries and in the general election.

This week, Paul introduced legislation with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to restore federal voting rights to non-violent offenders who have been released from prison.

Last week, he unveiled a bill with Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, to give federal judges more discretion to hand out sentences below the requirements of mandatory minimums.

Paul and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), one of the most liberal members of the Democratic caucus, last month announced a proposal to extend the Highway Trust Fund by giving companies a tax incentive to repatriate overseas profits.

In her time in the Senate, Hillary Clinton sponsored an array of bipartisan bills, with an eye on fashioning a pragmatic image after years of being seen as a hyper-partisan figure.

In the summer of 2006, for example, she co-sponsored, with former Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), a proposed constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the American flag that came within one vote of passing the Senate.

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Paul takes page from Clinton playbook

Vaccines Disease and the Non Aggression Principle of Libertarian Voluntaryism
I go over the core ethical issues with forcible vaccines and Voluntaryism. I also produce a comic at http://volcomic.com.

By: jaimekid2

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Vaccines Disease and the Non Aggression Principle of Libertarian Voluntaryism - Video

On Saturday night, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul will give a video address to the International Students For Liberty Conference in downtown Washington, D.C. One night earlier, self-exiled whistleblower Edward Snowdenwho has a little less mobility inside the United States than Paulwill address ISFL "via videoconference," according to organizers. Paulhasconsistently spoken out on behalf ofSnowden, calling his actions "civil disobedience," and saying that if Snowden faced justice he should "share a jail cell" with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Not every potential 2016er could appear on the same virtual dais as Snowden. Paul will be right at home.

"There seems to be a generational divide in opinion on Snowden, with young people more broadly supportive of his conduct," says Alexander McCobin, the president of Students For Liberty. "I think it's largely a result of young people having a different worldview these days, one that emphasizes individual empowerment and skepticism of the efforts of long-established institutions reforming themselves." (Disclosure: McCobin interned at Reason magazine when I was a reporter there.)

Paul's appearance is as good a reason as any to explain the difference between the sort of libertarian youth groups that are giving him hope for a broader, larger GOP. Students for Liberty was founded in February 2008 by McCobin, from an idea germinated in the Charles-Koch funded Institute for Humane Studies summer program. Young Americans for Liberty was founded roughly six months later, when Texas Representative Ron Paul ended his campaign for president, and "Young Americans for Ron Paul" wasre-branded. Both are 501(c)3 organizations; both are still run by the former students who founded them. (Jeff Frazee, a veteran of the 2008 and 2012 Ron Paul campaigns, is executive director of YAL.)

There seems to be a generational divide in opinion on Snowden, with young people more broadly supportive of his conduct.

Alexander McCobin

To outsiders, the groups sound nearly identical. They are not; they were born out of a schism between the Paul wing of libertarianism and the Koch wing. By and large, the libertarian donor class that seeded IHS, the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation and similar institutions saw them as the way to popularize the philosophy. The Ron Paul movement, which is now basically called the "liberty movement," found that young people who were anti-war (be it on drugs or Iraq) were also natural readers of Mises and Hayek.

Divisions between the old generations of libertarians had been stark. The divisions between YAL and SFL are not. The groups are basically collaborative, with the difference that YAL is understood to be a permanent ally of Ron Paul's campaign, and SFL (with international partners) is not as political. YAL is co-sponsoring SFL's conference. Ron Paul fans sometimes share a meme of the congressman waving his arms amid neon lights and the tag "It's Happening!" SFL's promo material for the weekend, advertising an event with Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano, winks at the meme.

Students for Liberty

Is there still some static? Of course there is. In 2014, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Ron Paul defended Crimea's sovereign right to secede and join the occupying Russians. McCobin issued a statement, informing the media that while Paul's "views are interpreted by many as wholly representative of the libertarian movement," the Students for Liberty disagreed.

That was then. Everyone in either wing of the young libertarian movement can agree on Snowden.

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