Why Rand Paul is fizzling

Why has Rand Paul's presidential campaign been such a dud?

There's something perplexing about his failure to take off. He should be building on his father's success and expanding the Paul coalition. After all, his Senate campaign in 2010 revealed him to be a savvy politician capable of blending the major aspects of his father's paleo-libertarian ideology with Republican orthodoxy. And since then, the younger Paul has enjoyed a much bigger media profile than his father ever had. He gave a well-reviewed speech to the 2012 Republican National Convention, a stage that his father never would have been allowed to appear on. He improved on his father's foreign policy, making it appealing to both non-interventionists and realists. He reached out to minority voters, sometimes awkwardly, but no doubt sincerely.

So why is he less popular than his father? Why are donors slow to support him, and why are his libertarian allies carping at him?

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Let's start with the fact that in seeking to be less hated by his father's enemies, Rand became less loved by his fans. Polarization has its benefits, and Ron Paul's campaign was polarizing. His followers called it a "revolution," making fan-art that drew from V for Vendetta and dramatizing a high-stakes confrontation not just with the Republican Party, but the entire American system.

The younger Paul's campaign is less of a protest movement. Protest candidates plead with the world, "In your heart, you know he's right." But Paul's bid to lead the GOP asks his libertarian supporters to believe, "In his heart, he knows you're right."

Furthermore, contrary voices abound in the 2016 campaign. In 2008 and in 2012 (albeit to a lesser degree), Ron Paul was the contrary voice. He was not trying to portray himself as the next Reagan. He was the first Paul. In a field where candidates all raised their hands unanimously, Paul was the most likely to say, "Hell no."

This time there are a few different types of protest candidates. Ron Paul tapped into Republican dissatisfaction with the war on terror and the Iraq War. Now it is Donald Trump directly challenging the GOP establishment's orthodoxies, particularly on immigration, tapping into a base of Middle American radicals and their economic anxiety. And Ted Cruz is assaulting the party's moral character, correctly indicting party leadership for fecklessness on issues like abortion.

In contrast, Rand Paul's campaign has failed to establish him as a renegade. In the run-up to his campaign, Paul found a way to join the hawkish protests of Sen. Tom Cotton and others against President Obama's negotiations with Iran. He found a way to support the bombing of ISIS, a big no-no for Paulites who view themselves as consistent non-interventionists and even pacifists.

Instead, Paul has tried to affiliate himself with the core of the party by highlighting the intensity of his Republican commitments. Think of the time he decided to show a metaphor rather than tell one, when he used an actual chainsaw to desecrate a copy of the federal tax code.

Paul was supposed to be a different kind of Republican. Instead, he has become merely the "kind of" candidate. He's kind of a libertarian. He's kind of against dumb wars. He's kind of for reaching out to new Republican constituencies. And therefore he's kind of...not that interesting anymore.

At least not yet. In the last debate Paul showed some hints of finding his convictions again. And he needs to find them fast. If he can survive until the field is smaller, then his opponents may start reminding libertarians why they liked Paulism in the first place. Instead of cringing before party mandarins or his ideological enemies, Paul needs to stand up and explain why he's different from the field, why that's exciting, and why he deserves to lead the party — even the parts of it that disagree with him.

Or he should go back to the Senate and be interesting there.