ThinkProgress caught up with Sen. Rand Paul to find how what he thought about the Mitt Romney "corporations are people" assertion. In what come as a bit of a surprise to the grassroots element of his tea party constituency, he totally agrees with Mittens. And goes him one further.
KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement today that “corporations are people”?
PAUL: Corporations are collections of people. I think we’re all corporations. To say we’re going to punish corporations like they’re someone else. All of us are corporations.
KEYES: Do you think that was basically in line with what he was saying?
PAUL: You think about, if you own a retirement fund, you have a 401k, everybody who has a 401k has parts of corporations, so in a sense we are.
KEYES: I think people might argue that corporations can’t be sent to jail.
PAUL: I think those arguments can be made, but I think the fact that a lot of times people want to vilify corporations, saying they’re someone else, that they’re these other rich people. They’re us. They’re the middle class. We all own parts of corporations.
I wonder what portion of Paul's constituency actually does own a retirement fund or a 401(k)? Of course, in Paul's mind they all do, because his allegiances are, as ThinkProgress points out, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and to his major donors like Koch Industries, AT&T, and Exxon Mobil. Since they write the checks, they must be people, just like you and me.