SENATOR RAND PAUL
G'day folks,
Welcome to some background on a fairly controversial US Senator. Randal Howard "Rand" Paul is an American politician and physician.
Since 2011, Paul has served in the United States Senate as a member of
the Republican Party representing Kentucky. He is the son of former U.S.
Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
Senator
Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, is best known for his support
of the Tea Party movement and his controversial comments on the Civil Rights
Act.
“I have a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear
and does not mince words. We've come to take our government back.”
—Rand Paul
Born in
Pennsylvania in 1963, Rand Paul became involved in politics in 1994, when he
founded Kentucky Taxpayers United, a watchdog group that tracked taxation and
spending in Kentucky until it dissolved in 2000. Rand Paul gained national
attention when he campaigned for his father, Ron Paul, who was
running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He attracted a
small but passionate following which helped him win the U.S. Senate seat for
Kentucky in 2010. Paul is the first U.S. Senator to serve alongside a
parent—his father Ron Paul—in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Early Life
Born
Randal Howard Paul on January 7, 1963, Rand Paul is the third of five children
born to Ron Paul—a U.S. Congressman and 2012 Republican presidential
candidate—and his wife, Carol. Like his siblings, Paul was baptized and raised
Episcopalian. In 1965, when he was still a toddler, the family moved from
Pittsburgh to San Antonio, Texas, and eventually settled in the Texas town of
Lake Jackson.
Paul
attended Baylor University and then the Duke University Medical School, his
father's alma mater. After receiving a medical degree in 1988, Paul pursued a
general surgery internship at the Georgia Baptist Medical Center in Atlanta,
Georgia. While there, he met Kentucky native Kelley Ashby. The couple dated for
a couple of years and married in 1991, and when Paul finished his ophthalmology
residency at Duke two years later, they moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky to
start a family and Paul's medical practice. They soon had three sons, William,
Duncan and Robert.
A long time
member of the service organization Lions Club International, Paul founded the
Southern Kentucky Lions Eye Clinic, a nonprofit offering free eye care to
patients in need, in 1995. He also performed free eye surgeries for
impoverished children in developing countries through the Children of the
Americas program.
A
lifelong Republican with Libertarian leanings, Paul became involved in
political causes in 1994, when he founded Kentucky Taxpayers United, a watchdog
group tracking taxation and spending issues in the Kentucky state legislature
until it disbanded in 2000. Rand was inspired to become involved in politics,
in part due to his father, Ron Paul, who was the first member of the Paul
family to run for and win political office. His father served the state of
Texas in the U.S. House on three separate occasions, beginning in 1976. Ron
Paul became nationally famous by running for the Republican presidential
nomination in 2008, after running twice in the presidential election as a
Libertarian candidate. Though his candidacy was ultimately unsuccessful, Ron
Paul's Libertarian platform attracted a small, but passionate, following. Rand
occasionally filled in for his father on the campaign trail, offering populist
speeches that echoed his dad's small-government beliefs.
In the
wake of the September 2008 American economic crisis, Rand Paul became active in
the Kentucky branch of the burgeoning, nationwide anti-tax movement known as
the Tea Party. He began hinting that he might run for the seat of retiring
Kentucky U.S. Senator Jim Bunning. On December 16, 2009—the 236th anniversary
of the Boston Tea Party—Paul announced his intention to run for a seat in the
U.S. Senate. He had never before sought political office. "If there's ever
a year for an outsider who has never held office before, this is the year,"
Paul told the crowd gathered in Russellville, Kentucky. He ran on a platform
that mixed traditional Libertarian issues, like reducing taxes and the size of
government, with socially conservative policies like a federal ban on abortion.
In the
Kentucky Republican primary, Paul was up against Kentucky Secretary of State
Trey Grayson, the protégé of powerful Senator Mitch McConnell. Though Grayson
had been backed by McConnell and other Republican luminaries like former Vice
President Dick Cheney, Paul's grassroots campaign attracted endorsements from
such influential figures as Steve Forbes, Focus on the Family's James Dobson
and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. On May 18, 2010, Paul won
the primary in a resounding upset victory, defeating Grayson by 24 points.
Immediately
after his win, Paul faced intense national criticism for current and past
comments that critics viewed as ideologically radical. He was particularly
criticized for his suggestion that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was too broad
in scope and should not apply to business. He later clarified that he would
have supported the act had he been in the Senate at that time, and then stepped
out of the public spotlight for a while to repair the public damage, pulling
out of scheduled appearances, including one on Meet the Press.
Paul
faced Democratic Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway in the November 2010
general election and emerged victorious, becoming Kentucky's junior senator in
January 2011. His victory was the first major win for a candidate so closely
identified with the Tea Party.
Rand has
focused on a range of issues since beginning his term in 2010, including
reducing federal debt, cutting Social Security benefits and lifting
restrictions to businesses created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
A resolution introduced by Rand to overturn EPA-initiated power plant pollution
rules was blocked in the Senate in November 2011.
In the
spring of 2012, media speculation began to center around the possibility of Paul
becoming the Republican pick as a running mate for former Massachusetts
governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In February
2012, he stated that he would be "honored" to be considered as
Romney's vice president. In May 2012, Paul received some media backlash for
stating at a Faith & Freedom event in Iowa that he wasn't sure that
President Obama's marriage views "could get any gayer." He later
added that he didn't mean to preach to citizens, he just wanted to voice his
support for traditional marriage.
Paul
again made headlines in 2013 with his nearly 13-hour-long filibuster speech in
the Senate. Taking the floor, he spoke against the confirmation of John Brennan
as the new head of the CIA. Paul also took this opportunity to voice his
objections to President Barack Obama's policy of using unmanned drone strikes
against terrorists. Brennan has been involved in helping to shape this policy
as a counter-terrorism advisor to the president. While he knew he couldn't stop
Brennan's appointment to the CIA post, Paul hoped that his filibustering
efforts would lead to greater debate on limiting the president's power to order
such strikes. "No president has the right to say he is judge, jury and
executioner," Paul said, according to CBS News.
Presidential Run
On April
7, 2015, the Kentucky senator announced on his website that he would be running
for president in 2016. "I am running for president to return our country
to the principles of liberty and limited government," Rand said.
Clancy's comment: Mm ... Interesting times ahead.
I'm ....
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