The Amazing, Hypnotic Appeal of Rand Paul


So Rand Paul filed a lawsuit yesterday against the NSA’s phone record collection program, and he’s already getting flack for parachuting in and trying to steal the limelight from a guy who filed a similar suit months ago. Some other awkward questions are being raised too, including one from Steve Benen, who wonders why this entire effort is being run through his campaign operation instead of his Senate office.

I think the answer to that is pretty obvious, but it also gives me a chance to mention something: Is anyone in Congress right now more of a genius at self-promotion than Rand Paul? Sure, Ted Cruz gets some attention for being an asshole, but that’s ephemeral. Nobody’s really very interested in Cruz.

But despite the fact that Paul’s political views make him wildly implausible as a candidate for higher office, everyone finds him endlessly fascinating. He mounts a meaningless “filibuster” and suddenly everyone wants to Stand With Rand. He wants to end the Fed and the tea partiers go gaga. He starts talking about Monica Lewinsky and it prompts a thousand thumbsuckers in the Beltway media. He opposes foreign interventions and somehow manages to hypnotize the punditocracy into thinking that maybe dovishness represents the future foreign policy of the Republican Party. He gets caught plagiarizing and shakes it off. He gets caught hiring an aide who turns out to be a former radio shock jock who specialized in neo-Confederate rants, and it just adds color to his resume.

It’s remarkable. Is he just an amazing, intuitive self-promoter, like Sarah Palin? Is he a case study in how being a nice guy (which apparently he is) gets you way more sympathetic coverage than being a lout (which apparently Ted Cruz really is)? Is this just an example of how bored the media is and how desperate they are for even small bits of sideshow amusement?

Beats me. But backbench senators sure don’t normally attract the kind of coverage that Rand Paul gets unless they’re legitimate presidential prospects. Which Paul isn’t. Not by a million miles, and everyone knows it. Don’t make me waste my time by pretending otherwise and demanding that I explain why he’s obviously unelectable.

But he sure does have the knack of entertaining bored reporters.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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