Dear America,

It has begun to look as though Rand Paul may really have a chance at the Republican nomination for president in 2016.  The moderates in the party have failed to distinguish themselves lately--Christy's integrity is in question, Jeb Bush's conservative bona fides have waned to less than stellar from the Tea Party perspective, and even Marco Rubio is running into friction over his immigration policy stand--and the hard core reactionaries keep on demonstrating that while they can preach to the choir, their voices don't carry out of the loft.  So who else is there for the Republicans to turn to really.  They need someone who can distinguish his positions from the Republican norm, which is getting more and more threadbare as time passes and as the American people tend with greater and greater insistence to ask what their position is rather than just applauding mindlessly for the conservative cheerleaders and nay-sayers.  The country is looking for someone to take a stand, and if nothing else, Rand Paul is eager to do that.  And he seems to be getting the message that teeing off on federal programs aimed at putting more energy efficient light bulbs in every socket aren't grist for the opposition mill, nor are low flow toilets.  But he has two problems to overcome that would prevent him from winning election even if he got the nomination.

The first is his toupee.  You may perceive sarcasm in that remark, and maybe there is some, but imagine seeing that hairpiece at a G7 conference where the leaders of the free world are assembled.  It is a question of presidential bearing...gravitas...and it would be hard for other people who have risen to the leadership of nations to take seriously the ideas of a man who thinks he is fooling anyone with that hat.  Rand Paul is bald, and if he wants to be taken seriously, he had better admit it.  He isn't asking some co-ed to the prom.  And while it may seem a stretch to point out this problem now, wait until there is a campaign going on and civility is always hanging in the balance.  If he wants to get a transplant, he can still probably be vice-president some day, like Joe Biden.  But it takes credibility to be elected president, and wearing that funny looking wig just begs the question of whether he respects those whom he wants to support him enough to see the need for honesty or, to the contrary, he thinks he is fooling all of them.  If the choices a candidate has made for staff can sink a candidacy, the choice of what you can foist on the American people in the guise of truth is certainly sufficient to rule someone out.  I have never seen anyone with curly hair on top but straight hair on the sides and the back of his head.  It's the other way around in my experience, and sooner or later, the toupee deniers are going to have to eat their hats.  If the guy can't admit that he is bald...if he is that vain...in what other areas is he vulnerable because of his insecurities.  

Second, and I admit, more important, is his philosophy about government intervention in social matters generally.  Whenever he points to a problem and insists that people should be left to their own devices he invites the same criticism: if we were capable of that kind of autonomy as a species there wouldn't be governments.  Look at the Duke Power and West Virginia chemical waste spills.  Both were a function of government insouciance inspired by either supply-side, anti-regulatory dogmatism or simple cupidity.  And whether or not you believe that more money for the rich means more money for the rest of us, polluted rivers are bad for everyone, and we need government...and yes, regulation...to prevent these kinds of environmental insults, and that's not all we need government for.  There are all kinds of things that government has to control because if you left the people to their own devices, the rights guaranteed in our constitution would evaporate in a single generation.  Just consider voting rights and how in Republican controlled states they are being curtailed, labor organizing as victimized in a concerted, albeit informal, campaign against unionization at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee.  Consider the banks and other financial institutions that ran our economy aground in 2007 and 2008.  Consider the corruption of our securities exchanges, which allow people who invest in computers that do nothing but rake off pennies from every trade and produce nothing but billions of dollars of unearned profit while the investor pays more when he buys and gets less when he sells.  The decline in the relative wealth of the middle class is in part a function of that kind of procedural creaming of the financial system by those who exploit the processes involved rather than participating in them, and then there are the "short sale" phenomenon, options trading, which is naked speculation that finances nothing, arbitrage, which exploits differences in markets rather than differences in the intrinsic values of stocks, and of course the advantageous tax rate that those who produce nothing but live on capital-gains-income enjoy.  Even with government the vast majority of us are taken advantage of by those who have the power and the money.  Imagine what it would be like without government.  Most Americans recognize that the only barrier between them and certain kinds of predation is government, regulation and the law.

So libertarian theory is going to be a tough sell, and that is all Rand Paul has to distinguish himself.  He's a dark horse at best with regard to the presidency, but as to the Republican nomination, I don't know.  The party of Goldwater seems never to disappoint when it comes to going out on a limb with a saw.  My hope is that they won't disappoint this time.

Your friend,

Mike