On my way home from work yesterday I heard Rand Paul being interviewed on NPR. His position on immigration is entirely in accord with mine: that the way to decrease the number of people entering the country illegally is to reform the law to allow enough legal immigration to meet the demands of the economy. He did, however, temper this with the usual Republican nonsense about "securing the border", which always makes me wonder if they mean a Soviet-style "border security zone", in which anyone found without authorization could be shot, or merely a Berlin-style wall and "death strip".
I also found Senator Paul's position on U.S. policy in the Middle East more agreeable than that of anyone else I've heard recently. He agrees with me that the the Bush-Obama policy of supporting Islamist rebels against secular dictators in various countries has been counterproductive, even going so far as to use the word "chaos" to describe the results. The Senator echoes my own view that our meddling in the Muslim world has made us new enemies, including ISIS, rather than promoting our interests or those of the people in the region; and he observed that had President Obama followed through last year on his proposal to bomb Syria to "degrade" the Assad regime, ISIS would probably be in Damascus right now.
Mind you, there's no way Senator Paul gets the vote of a Marxist like me; his views on economic issues are those of a classic nineteenth century liberal who thinks that the market, i.e. capital, can do no wrong. When asked how government should respond to rising income inequality, he said government should do nothing to promote it, but made it clear that he opposes government doing anything to retard it, such as increasing the minimum wage. The man came across as a first class weasel, particularly when he asserted that income inequality is less in cities with Republican mayors than in those with Democratic mayors.
I doubt I'll get a chance to vote against him, though; the militarist wing of his party will never let him get nominated. I expect the Republican nominee to be Jeb Bush, or perhaps Mitt Romney again, someone who can be relied upon to support the continuing waste of our blood, treasure, and hard work on pointless wars.