Mediaboss Marketing

By Paul Waldman October 24 at 12:08 PM

Anyone who remembers the 2012 GOP presidential primaries knows that the 2016 contest will involve a lot of arguing about whos the most conservative candidate. Any contender who has strayed from party orthodoxy on anything will have to undergo a sustained campaign of grovelling and humiliation to prove to Tea Partiers, religious conservatives, and everybody else that he will be faithful and true forevermore. This process leaves its participants battered and bruised, diminished in the eyes of general election voters.

But what if placating the right isnt as hard as it appears? That question is right now being contemplated by Rand Paul, who is running for the White House harder than anybody.

Paul has now given a speech outlining his foreign policy vision (which every candidate is supposed to have). The speech shows just how Paul is navigating the tension between the two competing incentives that will define his candidacy. On one hand, he needs to reassure Republican voters that hes conservative enough for them, but on the other hand, he also very much wants to be the different kind of Republican who will continue to receive glowing media coverage and prove appealing to moderate general election voters.

If you took out the five Reagan references and changed some words and phrases here and there, the speech Paul gave could have been delivered by Barack Obama. The difference between a Republican and a Democrat, apparently, is that the Republican says that we should always be prepared for war, but war should be a last resort, while the Democrat says that war should be a last resort, but we should always be prepared for war. Paul also added the controversial ideas that American values lead the world, and were stronger abroad when our economy is stronger at home. And also, Reagan Reagan Reagan.

The interesting thing is that, despite the similarity of Pauls ideas to those of Obama, Pauls speech showed that it probably isnt all that hard to give GOP voters what tey want on foreign policy. All it takes is a little dexterity to push the right buttons, as Paul does in this passage:

Although I support the call for defeating and destroying ISIS, I doubt that a decisive victory is possible in the short term, even with the participation of the Kurds, the Iraqi government, and other moderate Arab states.

In the end, only the people of the region can destroy ISIS. In the end, the long war will end only when civilized Islam steps up to defeat this barbaric aberration.

He takes a policy position many Republicans will disagree with, but leavens it with the mention of the long war and civilized Islam, giving a nod to the clash-of-civilizations sentiment so common on the right. Mission accomplished.

This is a marked contrast to the domestic realm, where there are many specific positions that are beyond negotiation. You have to support tax cuts, oppose Roe v. Wade, proclaim your hatred of Obamacare, want to Drill Baby Drill, and so on. Paul has stepped outside of conservative orthodoxy on a few domestic issues, such as with his criticism of mass incarceration. But thats easy to do now, since crime rates have plummeted since then, the issue has receded and base conservatives wont be angry with him for taking a contrary position. And at any rate, for some time, Paul has been slowly stepping away from the libertarian ideas on domestic issues that GOP voters would find truly objectionable, like legalizing drugs.

View original post here:
How Rand Paul is playing the GOP base, and what it means ...