Rand Paul plays GOP healer with eye on 2016 – KURTZ: Why the Dems have no bench for 2016
BATON ROUGE, La. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is still months away from an announcement on whether he will run for president in 2016, but there is no question he is laying the groundwork for a possible bid.
On Monday, Paul was playing political power broker in Louisiana. He was center stage at a rally where the losing Tea Party-aligned candidate Rob Maness buried the hatchet with establishment favorite GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy to present a unified front against Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in the Dec. 6 runoff here.
Im glad I could be here and do it, Paul told Fox News. I do want to be part of bringing [together] all facets of the party. The party doesnt need to be smaller. The party needs to be bigger.
Paul is the rare Republican who is able to straddle many factions of the party without alienating any one of them. He is a Tea Party favorite and speaks the language of libertarians. And while some establishment Republicans view him with either skepticism or outright disdain, the presumed new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has endorsed Pauls potential presidential bid.
Thats a potent formula for surviving the caucuses and primaries.
Paul also has a lot of chits in the bank after the midterm elections. He traveled to more than 30 states to campaign for Republicans. Putting to bed the bitter feud between Maness and Cassidy puts a powerful coda on his exhaustive work for the party particularly if Cassidy denies Landrieu a fourth term.
So far, the numbers look good for Cassidy. While he came second to Landrieu in the so-called jungle primary, the combined Republican vote theoretically gives him a 13-point advantage. Landrieu has been trying to pick off Maness supporters, but this new alliance makes the task much tougher for Landrieu.
Just like me, one of the centerpieces of [Maness] argument is that Senator Landrieu supports Barack Obama 97 percent of the time. He is taking our country in the wrong direction, Cassidy told Fox News.
While the math isnt in her favor, Landrieu is not about to go down without a fight. Her campaign just released a harsh new ad, selectively editing moments from a speech Cassidy gave to the Republican Leadership Conference in May to make him look incoherent and bumbling. Landrieu is also hammering Cassidy on his record of opposing Medicaid expansion and supporting raising the retirement age to 70.
Hes now going to have to run on his own record, Landrieu told Fox News. Hes run on everything else but his own record.
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Rand Paul plays GOP healer with eye on 2016 - KURTZ: Why the Dems have no bench for 2016