The gift that keeps on giving

I've been working on a post about the most recent developments surrounding Senate nominee Rand Paul (R-KY/nuttyland)...but recent developments just keep developing. The latest surrounds comments that he made during an interview with an English-speaking Russian television outlet called RT.

For those that can't view videos, around the 8:30 mark, Paul starts discussing immigration. He states that the U.S. "shouldn't provide an easy route to citizenship", because Mexican immigrants support Democrats by a margin of 3-1. He also discussed the idea of an "underground electric fence" along the border, and that we're the only country that he knows that grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil.

First, it's good to see that Paul has overcome his bout of exhaustion that forced him to cancel his Meet The Press interview. I guess he needs to work his way up to talking with the American press again, kind of like how UC plays schools like Ohio Northern in basketball to prepare themselves for the regular season. But more troublingly, Paul has decided that the 14th Amendment - which grants citizenship as explained above - isn't such a good idea. For a candidate backed heavily by the Tea Partiers, who revere the Constitution in such high regard - at least the parts that they like - this seems pretty inconsistent.

So let's summarize what we've learned about Paul just during his first 10 days as the republican nominee. Paul:

• thinks that government has no right to tell private businesses that they cannot discriminate against other races, as required by the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• believes that the Americans With Disabilities Act isn't "fair to the business owner"
• slammed a newspaper in 2002 for supporting the Fair Housing Act because a free society can "allow hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin"
• is worried that there's an underground plot to create a common North American currency called the Amero, which would lead to the creation of an EU-styled North American Union, and then a NAFTA superhighway that would connect Canada and Mexico through the U.S.
• doesn't think that the federal courts should be allowed to hear abortion rights cases like Roe v. Wade
• is not currently certified by the generally accepted ophthalmology board, but has created his own competing board that has been entirely inconsequential
• says he has no problem with gay marriage, but does not support it being "government sponsored", which is problematic since all heterosexual marriage is government sponsored in some way
• believes that criticizing BP's handling of the Louisiana oil spill as "un-American", and thinks people shouldn't try and find fault in disasters like this or the recent West Virginia mine explosion because "sometimes accidents happen"

All of this has led to Paul holding a narrow 3 point lead in the most recent poll of his Senate election contest against Democrat Jack Conway, and trailing by a 60-20 margin amongst moderates. Further complicating the issue is that the Libertarian Party is coming around to the realization that he's not much of a libertarian, to the point where they're considering the possibility of fielding a candidate of their own.

In the end, I expect Paul to win simply because I don't know that being this crazy is going to hurt him that much in Kentucky. Where this is going to hurt the republicans is nationally, because Paul is not playing well, and is quickly becoming the example of everything that is wrong with today's GOP.