Pretty much every variation of the “racist” charge was thrown around by both Democrats and establishment Republicans.
One year ago, Dr. Rand Paul, son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, made barely a blip on the American politics radar screen. Today, onAugust 12th, he aims to be the first candidate to be elected to the Senate with the support of the grassroots Tea Party movement.
It was pretty clear that the political establishment hated him from the start. He didn’t have the blessing of the long-established kingpins in the GOP, and the liberal Democrats thought he was a right-wing nightmare waiting to happen. After Rand Paul applied for his official Senate candidacy as a Republican, the support from the growing Tea Party movement was immediate.Many of the Tea Partiers already supported his father, Ron Paul, and his son, while differing with his father on some policies, matched his father’s dedication to constitutional conservatism. That was enough to fire up the Tea Partiers, and it quickly became evident that it was enough for Kentucky conservatives as well. Paul’s message of limited government, fiscal conservatism, and balanced government budgets inspired Kentucky Republicans to elect him as the Republican Senate candidate for Kentucky over his establishment-picked opponent, Trey Grayson.