#CPAC2013: Conservatives ‘Stand With Rand’ With Enthusiasm

Politics

Buzz about the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination race heated up this afternoon at CPAC when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) followed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on the main stage.

Paul’s supporters were in full force and handing out “Stand With Rand” lapel stickers as CPAC attendees poured into the main ballroom. Excitement for Paul is at a peak following his 13-hour filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor last week against the Obama Administration’s drone policy.

Sen. Paul came right out of the gate by joking that he only had ”ten measly minutes” at CPAC, but he brought 13 hours of information, just in case. Paul said he had a message for the President last week and today: “No one person gets to decide the law… No one person gets to decide your guilt or innocence. My question was about whether Presidential power has limits.”

He went on to mock that Senator Obama and President Obama seem to be different people. “The President who seemed to respect civil liberties has signed a law to permit indefinite detention of American citizen without a trial,” Paul snarked. “My 13 hour filibuster was a message: good intentions are not enough.”

Paul showed lots of emotion as he told a story of a constituent from Kentucky who has lost his leg in the Afghanistan war, and tied the battlefield back to the battle over Constitutional principles here at home. The Kentucky Senator postulated, “If we allow indefinite detention and drone strikes on American citizens…what are our men and women in uniform fighting for? Our Bill of Rights is what makes us exceptional as a nation.”

Sen. Paul also showed substance by outlining a sketch of a five-year budget which he said would create jobs and opportunities by cutting the corporate income tax in half, endorsing the Flat Tax of 17%, abolishing the US Dept. of Education and returning money and power back to states.

Finally, Paul took a shot at some of those who criticized him after his filibuster when he was “the GOP of old has grown old and moss covered, and I don’t need to mention names.”

If we are going to have a GOP that can win, liberty needs to be the backbone of the GOP.

Sen. Paul quoted Ronald Reagan who said in his 1989 farewell speech, “As government expands, liberty contracts.” Sen. Paul closed his speech with thunderous applause when he turned that around for a the “Facebook Generation.”