I don't get it. People treat him like some sort of prophet, I guess because of his dad.

I think he is bringing the Republican Party somewhat back to the center. Still, his policies are too extreme for the average Democrat. He could be a wolf in sheep's clothing for many unsuspecting voters. But, it can only help the Democratic Party if he agrees with Democrats over Republicans like Dick Cheney, in my opinion.

Nader tried to do. Ham handed in a different way though.

I tend to agree. Yet there are distinctions. Nader believed that there was "no difference" between Gore and Bush, and actually attempted to combine (them) and conquer what he viewed as the greatest threat to America. Paul is the more classic "divide and conquer" type, even within his own party.

Both attract supporters by mixing some truth into their program. But both programs reflect the personal pathology of its leader.

Again, thank you for nailing it.

after another to appeal to the different groups he wants support from. Think he's anti-Israel? Look, here's a bill to cut Palestinian aid! Snowden fan? Look, here's my anti-NSA lawsuit. Afraid of drones getting you on the sidewalk? Filibuster!! Not a serious legislator by any stretch.

The more Dick Cheney is covered by the media -- as obscene as that is -- the better.

His string is stuck and he won't shut up.

On edit, come to think of it, that would make a pretty good bumper sticker!

Cheney helps build Rand Paul's anti-establishment credentials by saying this.

the fundies, and the corporocracy: they overlap on most things, but each one's an independent power base and they've had conflicts from the get-go, with very vicious primaries (Dem primary issues are when they kick out someone who won't go-along-to-get-along, even if it means throwing the actual election)

among other things, the corpocrats use the fundies to block action on global warming, but their flacks genuinely believe that GMOs, a nuke in every basement, and pills will bring about some sort of Wellsian utopia any day now, while the fundies love to burn books; the militarists love how easy the fundies are to rile up against both the Reds AND then the ultra-Salafists and Baathists they hired to fight them, but also ally tightly with the corporatists who make the weapons for use against "enemies foreign and domestic"; the anarcho-capitalists don't make a lick of sense (public-relations campaigns, poverty, corruption, profits, GMOs, suburbs, regulatory capture, upward flows of wealth, market cornering, monopoly, accidents, racism, speculation, pollution, income inequality impossible under a TRUE capitalism) but share (or compete for) the Angry White Male vote with the Christian Identity and Reconstructionist types in the fundie camp: their rhetoric constantly scours the corpos and warmongers--but they were founded by the Hunt and Koch empires and are riddled with mercenaries, and were in fact one of Ollie North's biggest channels through Honduras (though Argentina and Israel established those channels); the right-liberts also are self-contradictory on religion, being founded by both Rand AND Rushdoony's respective camarillas