Rand Paul's totally conventional, government-bashing campaign for president

The senator from Kentucky advertises himself as a different kind of Republican. If only.

Rand Paul
(Image credit: (Brooks Kraft/Corbis))

You ever get the feeling the whole world is colluding to perpetuate a fraud?

You can see it happening right now around the just-announced presidential candidacy of Republican Sen. Rand Paul. It seems that everyone — including the candidate himself, the narrative-hungry reporters covering his nascent campaign, and his antagonists in his own party — has a stake in portraying him as some newfangled Republican poised to move the GOP in a super-duper innovative direction.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.