On CNN State of the Union, Sen. Rand Paul made a fool of himself by repeating the same blame Obama for the shutdown talking points that he admitted on video were his strategy for “winning” the shutdown.
Video:
Sen. Paul was asked if this was the beginning of the end for the Republican Party. He answered, “I think our demise is a little overstated. I would say that both parties are going to catch a lot of blame on this. This not good for either party…Well, I think both are. Democrats who think this is a parlor game, who think this is fun. Here’s what the Democrats think. They think we’ll send a bunch of government workers out there to close the roadside viewing of Mount Rushmore, cause that’ll be funny. I think it isn’t funny, and I think that Democrats and Republicans are going to catch blame. So I don’t want to be here. I don’t see this as winning or losing. This is a lose/lose situation. We need to open up government, and it does require conversation. But the president is the one saying he won’t negotiate, and now it’s Senate Democrats saying, we used to want a clean CR, but we think you’re squirming, so now we want to raise spending and break the budget caps. So I think we’re seeing that Senate Democrats are getting greedy about this whole thing.”
There is a very simple reason why Republicans have not been successfully able to blame President Obama for the government shutdown. Unlike Rand Paul and his fellow Republicans in the House and Senate, President Obama never had a vote on whether or not the government stayed open. In contrast, Rand Paul has voted against a clean CR everytime that it has come to the floor.
The polls show that the American people aren’t stupid. They know who is keeping the government closed. Rand Paul thinks we’re all dumb. Sen. Paul is still trying to undo the damage he caused by being recorded discussing with Mitch McConnell how Republicans were going to “win” the government shutdown. That video is the reason why Paul keeps pushing the lies that Democrats are playing games and having fun with the government shutdown. By refusing to change his talking points, even after being caught on tape, Sen. Paul is embarrassing himself everytime he speaks.
Paul’s complaint that Democrats are getting greedy was an admission of defeat. The Republicans are angry because they think Democrats are “running up the score” by asking for things like an end to sequester funding.
The American people are never going to blame the president to the same degree that they blame Congress for this dual act of economic sabotage. Rand Paul and the Senate Republicans could have sent a unified message that they wouldn’t tolerate a government shutdown by voting with Democrats on a clean CR. Instead, Paul and others chose to follow the lead of Ted Cruz by playing games with the CR. Now, they are paying the price for their miscalculation.
Rand Paul blew it, and now he is trying to blame President Obama for the mess that he helped make. President Obama wasn’t the person caught on tape discussing how Republicans were going to win this game. Paul has never apologized for treating the economic livelihood of millions of Americas like a game. He just keeps going in front of the cameras and making the same statements that he admitted were talking points in the video with McConnell.
Sen. Paul continues to make a fool out of himself by repeating his talking points, and pretending that no one has seen the video.
Rand, we know you’re lying, because you told us on tape that sounding reasonable and blaming Obama was your strategy for winning.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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