The Washington Examiner’s Byron York asks, Will GOP’s new vision be shaped by Paul or Rubio? He reports that when they spoke this week at CPAC, Sen. Mario Rubio told Republicans “we don’t need a new idea” and declared that “traditions— traditional marriage, traditional values—are still good.”
In contrast, Sen. Rand Paul told the audience, crowded with his enthusiastic young supporters, “The GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered,” and that “Our party is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom. The new GOP, the GOP that will win again, will need to embrace liberty in both the economic and personal sphere.”
Rubio comes out of the party’s social conservative wing, while Paul’s base is the smaller but faster-growing libertarian wing nurtured by his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, who opposed the anti-gay federal marriage amendment and supported allowing gay people to serve openly in the military.
Paul has not endorsed marriage equality, but it’s clear his vision is one that gay equality advocates could work with. The battle in the GOP is now engaged.
5 Comments for “Old vs. New”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Paul has not endorsed marriage equality, but it’s clear his vision is one that gay equality advocates could work with. The battle in the GOP is now engaged.
Rand Paul said this on Wednesday:
Paul’s chief of staff, Doug Stafford, confirmed later in the day on Wednesday that Paul supports marriage equality bans at the state level including in his home state of Kentucky.
So the new “vision” comes down to this:
(1) Eliminate marriage as a criteria from federal law and regulations, eliminating marriage as a criteria for the roughly 1,300 federal rights and responsibilities determined by marital status (Social Security, housing, and food stamps, veteran’s benefits, copyright law, federal government employee disclosure requirements, income taxes, estate taxes, gift taxes and taxes relating to the sale of homes, ERISA and other retirement rules and regulations, education loans, farm subsidies, federal employees benefits (both civilian and military), and immigration and residency requirements) .
(2) Ban marriage equality in the states.
Wow. What’s not to like about that?
It is ingenious. I’ll say that for it. Paul gets to both oppose marriage equality and take it off the table at the federal level, so he can run for President without having to deal with the issue.
But it is artifice, too clever by half. An atheist has got a better chance of being elected the next Pope than Ran Paul does of getting the federal government to stop recognizing marriages.
If Paul had come out in favor of eliminating all recognition of marriage at both federal and state levels, the worst you could say about him is that he is hopelessly tone-deaf politically. But his present position is at best untenable, and at worst a calculated political straddle intended to keep marriage discrimination in place without him having to pay a political price.
posted by another steve on
No one is saying Rand Paul (or his father, for that matter) are where they need to be on marriage equality. Far from it. But Miller’s point is worth considering: because Paul does not come out of the social conservative/religious right and is committed to “libertarian” values of personal freedom, he could be “engaged” in the argument and moved (his father went from supporting “don’t ask, don’t tell” to supporting openly gay servicemembers, and said his discussions with gay veterans changed his mind on the issue).
The problem is that the LBGT left, exemplified by the Human Rights Campaign, isn’t interested in engaging in that discussion with libertarian Republicans. Their purpose is to elect Democrats and to be part of the Democratic machine, end of story. But the country is, and probably will remain, about equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Moving the GOP forward will be absolutely necessary to secure gay equality. Engaging the libertarians is the way to do it. That is, unless you would rather just be a Democratic party hack, raising money for Democrats and getting invited to all the best cocktail parties, than to actually advance the gay equality agenda.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But Miller’s point is worth considering: because Paul does not come out of the social conservative/religious right and is committed to “libertarian” values of personal freedom, he could be “engaged” in the argument and moved …
I think that anyone who is willing to think can be “moved”. Senator Portman is a good example.
But I don’t see any difference between Rand Paul’s basic views about marriage equality (“I am an old-fashioned traditionalist. I believe in the historical definition of marriage.“) and those of social conservatives.
The only difference between Paul and a social conservative on the issue is that Paul wants the federal government out of the marriage-recognition business, but it doesn’t seem to me that there is anything special about his core “traditionalist” views that differentiate him from social conservatives.
In any event, it seems to me that we are as likely to move social conservatives as we are to move “libertarians” who self-describe as “traditionalist”.
After all, think about what Senator Portman wrote the other day:
“We conservatives believe in personal liberty and minimal government interference in people’s lives. We also consider the family unit to be the fundamental building block of society. We should encourage people to make long-term commitments to each other and build families, so as to foster strong, stable communities and promote personal responsibility.”
Is that so different than “libertarian values of personal freedom”, as you put it?
Maybe I’m tone deaf to the nuances. But I’m not sure that it makes much difference. As you know, I’m a Democrat, and as Tom Jefferson pointed out, it is pro-equality conservatives who have to change the Republican Party. We can’t do it for you.
posted by Clayton on
“The problem is that the LBGT left, exemplified by the Human Rights Campaign, isn’t interested in engaging in that discussion with libertarian Republicans. ”
It seems to me that the solution to that problem lies with the LBGT right, exemplified by the Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud. Their purpose–as is clear from the names of both organizations–is to elect Republicans and be part of the Republican machine, end of story. If the two major parties remain about equally divided, the LCR and GOProud have some work to do, and blaming the HRC for Republican positions seems like someone is shifting the responsibility.
posted by Clayton on
The choice between Rand and Rubio may not be as cut-and-dried as it is being presented here. The take-away quotation from Rubio was, “Just because I believe that states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot.” He could have said, “Just because I believe marriage is between a man and a woman…,” or “Just because I believe in traditional marriage…,” but he didn’t. He was making the case that states should decide. Not the church. Not tradition by itself. And certainly not a federal constitutional amendment–which ALL the 2012 Republican primary candidates pledged to support. Rubio came out firmly on the side of the states. Since, increasingly the states are choosing to allow marriage equality, and since polling suggests that the trend will only increase, Rubio’s position, as stated at CPAC, seems designed to give himself room to evolve as the nation does.