Why Rand Paul is Not Ready for Prime Time

Lee Daniels, on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's blog, dissects the Tea Party favorite's language.

You remember George Allen? He was the Republican Senator from Virginia, widely considered as late as mid-2006 the odds-on favorite to succeed George W. Bush as President –until he self-destructed in a “macaca” minute during the re-election contest that he ultimately lost to Jim Webb.

Paul, the self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate who last Tuesday won the Republican primary in Kentucky for its open Senate seat, is apparently trying to show that, when it comes to substantive politics, he’s not ready for prime time, either.

Instead of building on his initial boasts that the movement was ready to wield substantial political power, Paul has spent the last week in that familiar conservative position: trying to convince the public he’s neither a racist nor a hypocrite.

So far, it’s not going well.

Late Friday, after displaying astonishing political incompetence from Tuesday night to Friday, Paul cancelled his scheduled Sunday morning appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

One could almost hear the stunned gasps echoing around the national political arena. Cancel on one of the venues where politicians get the chance to prove they belong on the national stage?

Source: The Defenders Online: the full story here.