Freshman Senator Rand Paul is a leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
His mini-rebranding of his father's neo-Bircher libertarianism, nationally amplified by his anti-drones filibuster in March, seems to be working with Republican voters -- he's been within the margin of error of the 2016 presidential primary lead in most national polls since then.
Sure, most of Paul's support comes from the remnants of his father's two presidential campaigns, but he is working to move beyond that by appealing to young voters.
Someone like myself could appeal to young people, independents and moderates, because many of them do think it's a mistake to put people in jail for marijuana use and throw away the key.
That one little issue might work with "young people, independents and moderates," but Paul tends not to talk so much in public about his far-right position on abortion, that would repel most of them.
More, below.
Like his father, Paul is extremely anti-choice -- this year he introduced his Life at Conception Act that would essentially outlaw abortion in all cases.
He talked about that once on CNN, got in trouble with the anti-choice crowd, and sent a flack to assure the anti-choicers that he is "100 percent pro-life."
Way under the national media's radar, Paul has been fund-raising for anti-choice outfits like the National Pro-Life Alliance via direct mail.
I have one of those letters, and it shows that Paul is indeed "100 percent pro-life."
The envelope makes it seem that the letter is from Rand Paul, United States Senator, only on the back is the real sponsor/writer -- the NPLA -- made clear.
Included in the envelope are "Citizen Petition(s) to Reverse Roe v. Wade" for everyone's three federal legislators, plus two more for Boehner and McConnell.
Also too, a four-page letter from Paul, dated July 1, 2013, on official-looking "United States Senator" letterhead, and full of over-the-top anti-choice rhetoric, dramatic underlining, and pleas for money.
Here's the lede:
For 40 years, nine unelected men and women on the Supreme Court have played God with innocent human life.
They have invented laws that condemned to painful deaths without trial more than 56 million babies for the crime of being "inconvenient."
snip
Now the time to grovel before the Supreme Court is over.
Of course, the Supreme Court did not "invent" any laws, and "grovel" is an odd word to describe our long-standing tradition of judicial review.
But truth is not important in fund-raising letters like Paul's, where rousing the rabble to get out their checkbooks is the only important value.
Because as Paul states, "I'm sure you'll agree pro-lifers cannot just sit by watching the bloodshed continue."
Paul says that achieving the NPLA goal of 1 million petitions is "crucial to have the full weight of an informed public backing the pro-life position" to influence votes on his Life at Conception Act.
The idea that any number of petitions from a little anti-abortion group will have any effect on any federal legislators vote on a bill to outlaw abortion is risible.
But that's what Paul wrote.
Of course, Paul really wrote none of this claptrap. Obviously the NPLA's grifting fund-raisers wrote the whole thing.
But Paul signed off on it, and approved the pseudo-official envelope and letterhead.
He hopes that only true believers get the NPLA package, and that they won't share it with the majority of non-true-believers.
Well, that ain't gonna happen.
Paul's problem, in any general election (Kentucky or national), is that a vast majority of "young people, independents and moderates" do not want to see abortion outlawed.
A January Pew Research poll found that support for overturning Roe v. Wade -- which Paul's Life at Conception Act does by law -- is just 27 percent among 18-29-year-olds and 28 percent among independents.
Indeed, even the libertarians that Paul purports to represent aren't anti-choice at all.
The Libertarian Party's most recent platform, for example, says this about abortion:
Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
Which is clearly 100 percent pro-choice.
The Libertarian Party represents hard-core libertarians who hate government in every way (that David Koch was their vice presidential candidate in 1980). Others who fancy themselves libertarians generally don't want to pay taxes and dislike the police-state elements of most contemporary governments.
They are presumably part of Paul's base for any national campaign, yet, unlike Paul, they do not want the government outlawing first-month abortions, or any other currently legal abortion.
The much larger voter universe of "young people, independents and moderates" essentially agrees with libertarians on that.
Paul's 100 percent pro-life stance will become a lot more well-known than it is now in the 2016 primary campaign.
It won't hurt him there, but it certainly will should he win the nomination.