Rand Paul rebuked by fellow Republicans on foreign aid
By Dana Milbank, WashPost, Wednesday, July 31, 4:50 PM
To be objectivist about it, you would have to conclude that the Republican Party is shrugging at Rand Paul right now.
Chris Christie, the popular GOP governor of New Jersey, last week called Paul’s libertarian views “dangerous.” And on the Senate floor Wednesday, Republican colleagues dealt the junior senator from Kentucky what can be described only as a resounding rebuke.
Even the 86-13 vote against Paul’s proposal to strip Egypt of its foreign aid doesn’t capture the lopsided nature of the defeat. In the final seconds of the roll call and long after the outcome was obvious, a bloc of six GOP lawmakers led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) quietly cast their votes with Paul — not in agreement with him but in fear of the tea party voters who adore him.
But whether Paul’s position had seven Republican votes or 13, the isolationist gadfly found himself in the decided minority of the 45-member Senate GOP caucus. And in the hour-long debate that preceded the vote, Paul was alone on the floor defending his position against an emotional onslaught from his party’s most respected voices on foreign policy.
(More here.)
To be objectivist about it, you would have to conclude that the Republican Party is shrugging at Rand Paul right now.
Chris Christie, the popular GOP governor of New Jersey, last week called Paul’s libertarian views “dangerous.” And on the Senate floor Wednesday, Republican colleagues dealt the junior senator from Kentucky what can be described only as a resounding rebuke.
Even the 86-13 vote against Paul’s proposal to strip Egypt of its foreign aid doesn’t capture the lopsided nature of the defeat. In the final seconds of the roll call and long after the outcome was obvious, a bloc of six GOP lawmakers led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) quietly cast their votes with Paul — not in agreement with him but in fear of the tea party voters who adore him.
But whether Paul’s position had seven Republican votes or 13, the isolationist gadfly found himself in the decided minority of the 45-member Senate GOP caucus. And in the hour-long debate that preceded the vote, Paul was alone on the floor defending his position against an emotional onslaught from his party’s most respected voices on foreign policy.
(More here.)
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