Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “will not appear at either of Thursday’s Fox Business-hosted debates in South Carolina, after the network’s polling analysis denied him a spot on its prime time stage,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Paul: “I think they’ve made a mistake. I’m not willing to accept a designation as a minor campaign. We’ve raised $25 million. We’ve gotten on the ballot on every state. It’s kind of ridiculous to arbitrarily rate the campaigns based on national polling.”
“The Republican debate stage will be noticeably smaller when the candidates gather in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday night for their first debate of the year,” the New York Times reports.
Fox Business Network, the host of the debate, “announced the qualifiers for the main stage, and Sen. Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina — who have both been slipping in recent polls — did not make the cut.”
Politico: “Paul and Fiorina are set to join Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum in the undercard — if Paul decides to participate.”
Sen. Rand Paul “thinks it’s time to do away with the undercard Republican presidential debate,” Politico reports.
Said Paul: “I’m not sure where the purpose is anymore, if there ever was one. I think if you have a national campaign, you’ve raised a significant amount of money, you’re on the ballot, you’ve employed staff and you’re actively campaigning, you’ve got to be in the debate.”
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Sen. Rand Paul said that Gov. Chris Christie should resign his office “because he has spent more than 200 days outside his state yet is campaigning for president based on his experience as a governor,” Politico reports.
Said Paul: “He may not even be a resident never mind Governor.”
Sen. Rand Paul will not accept being relegated to an undercard debate, Politico reports.
Said Paul: “I won’t participate in any kind of second-tier debate… I’m not gonna let any network or anybody tell me we’re not a first-tier campaign. If you tell a campaign with three weeks to go that they are in the second tier, you destroy the campaign.”
Sen. Rand Paul told CNN that Sen. Marco Rubio should resign since he doesn’t show up to cast votes in the Senate.
Said Paul: “Well, you know, the difference between Marco Rubio and I is, I show up for work. And we had the biggest vote of the whole year, voting on a trillion dollars worth of spending, and he didn’t show up. So, yes, I think he ought to resign or give his pay back to the taxpayer.”
Sen. Rand Paul said it’s “deeply disturbing” that Donald Trump is still the race’s front-runner and predicted his rival would be “wiped out in a general election,” The Hill reports.
Said Paul: “We’ve all let the polls consume us too much. I don’t think the polls are very accurate.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “is confident he will be on the primetime Republican debate stage Tuesday, but if he falls short, he will make an announcement this week about what comes next,” the Boston Globe reports.
Said Paul: “We will make an announcement, on that, on Tuesday.”
A campaign spokesman later said that Paul was in the race to win.
Politico: “By nearly every measure, the Kentucky senator’s White House bid is struggling to find a pulse.”
“Rand Paul, once considered the main contender for the anti-establishment GOP vote, will likely be pushed off the debate stage next week when CNN announces the lineup for the fifth Republican forum,” Politico reports.
“Chris Christie, however, has clawed back in the polling thanks to a rebound in New Hampshire, virtually ensuring he will be promoted to the main event in Las Vegas on Tuesday.”
“I think they would choose a reasonable alternative like I’m what proposing if we were given more airtime.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by BuzzFeed, saying he needs more airtime to beat Donald Trump.
McKay Coppins: “The two camps have spent much of the past three years bitterly feuding behind the scenes (and trying to knife each other in interviews for my book). But those closest to the family say Rand genuinely admires his father, and is anxious to make him proud by building on his legacy. And Ron? One senior staffer in Rand’s Senate office told me that after years of closely observing the dynamic between the two men, he was left stupefied by Ron’s antagonism toward his son’s career.”
Said the staffer: “He should be proud of Rand, but he’s not. It’s a really weird relationship.”
Sen. Ted Cruz has been poaching Sen. Rand Paul’s “libertarian supporters since last January, when the Texas senator touched down in Iowa for a forum organized by Rep. Steve King (R-IA),” National Review reports.
“The first thing Cruz did on that trip — before visiting with King or any of the state’s evangelical leaders — was stop at the Holiday Inn by the airport for a private roundtable discussion with Iowa’s ‘liberty’ leaders. In the eleven months since, Cruz has made significant inroads with this constituency — the one Ron Paul created, and Rand Paul had counted on as the backbone of his campaign.”
“He’s really not a factor at this point.”
— GOP presidential candidate Jim Gilmore (R), quoted by BuzzFeed, on Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) presidential campaign.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says he’ll filibuster a bill to raise the debt ceiling, BuzzFeed News reports.
Said Paul: “I think it’s a horrible — it’s hard for me to not use profanity in describing it.. It’s a bill that shows a careless disregard for debt. It will raise the debt with no limit.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his allies “are quietly ratcheting up pressure on Rand Paul to pay more attention to his Senate reelection next year — and less to his flagging 2016 presidential candidacy,” Politico reports.
“So far, those efforts have stopped short of urging the Kentucky senator, whose presidential bid McConnell has formally endorsed, to outright abandon his national campaign. But there are growing concerns that Paul, as a senator still in his first term in office, is courting trouble by dividing his time between the two races, raising the prospect that a rock-ribbed Republican seat could be put into play and jeopardize McConnell’s fragile 54-seat GOP majority.”
Sen. Rand Paul “is trying to get the word out that his campaign is still breathing, and he’s not planning to pull the plug anytime soon,” Politico reports.
“It’s a sign of the tough times that have befallen the Paul campaign — which is currently buried in the polls and struggling to raise money — that he’s been forced to show proof of life to counter speculation that he’s dropping out of the race.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told the Concord Monitor that climate change is a discussion that’s impossible to have – in a logical way – in the United States right now.
Said Paul: “It has become sort of like you’re a Holocaust denier if you question any of the religious cult that says, ‘You have to believe as I do.’ I think we’re in an absurd situation.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “is under increasing pressure from Republicans here and in Washington to pull the plug on his stagnant presidential campaign and instead recommit his resources to keeping his Senate seat in GOP hands,” Politico reports.
“D.C. Republicans think Paul’s poll numbers have flat-lined — and operatives worried about retaining control of the Senate are ready for him to start spending a lot more time in Kentucky and a lot less time in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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