Rand Paul's Petulance With Reporters Will Ruin Him [View all]

[DemocratSinceBirth]

You wouldn’t know it based on reputation, but Senator Rand Paul is the most charismatic presidential candidate in the Republican Party. Senator Marco Rubio generates the most buzz in this arena because he doesn’t stumble under questioning; but he's at best only a serviceable public speaker. Senator Ted Cruz can riff, but as one firefighter put it to Bloomberg’s Dave Weigel, his extemporaneous monologues make unconverted audiences feel like they need "to take a shower."

Like Cruz, Paul is every bit the ideologue, but without the cloying infomercial sheen. He’s relaxed and confident, which makes for a very persuasive combination. He's comfortable talking about ideas in public forums without sounding like he’s making canned sales pitches, because he actually built his career around a handful of core beliefs.

But he’s spent the last few years jettisoning those beliefs and sprinkling his record with contradictions, which makes him a bright red target for interviewers, who draw attention to his greatest weakness: extremely thin skin. In the unending contest to channel Ronald Reagan that defines Republican politics, Paul has a decidedly un-Reaganlike tendency to whine and complain and act petulant when challenged by reporters. It will be his undoing.

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That Paul occupies a niche in national politics reinforces the reflex. When he shushes a reporter or scolds her for talking over him, his loyalists don’t see an otherwise talented politician unable to hide his annoyance. They eat it up. In their minds Paul is the rare politician who’ll bite back at reporters when they supposedly expose their biases. But asking questions that other conservatives continue to raise reveals no bias. What it reveals is that, for all his natural talent, Paul can't reconcile his beliefs with his ambitions. That's a huge problem for a national politician. It will define his candidacy.




http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121489/rand-paul-savannah-guthrie-skirmish-exemplifies-his-greatest-weakness