Rand Paul clearly has ambitions of running for the presidency, if not in 2016 then later. He got a lot of press for going to Howard University to talk about GOP outreach to the African-American community. It was not a big success, unless he was trying to get a negative reaction from the students there in order to improve his standing with the GOP base, which sees all minorities as moochers.
But even if was that was his goal, his tone-deafness and condescending attitude towards the students would have been shocking if this kind of talk and behavior had not become the norm.
The Daily Show had a good reaction.
(This clip was aired on April 11, 2013. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
Oh my. That was priceless.
” Turns out Howard University doesn’t just educate black people.”
I almost fell out of my chair laughing at that line.
The look on Rand’s face is priceless…“What? African American students at one of the nation’s best schools actually know something about their own history?! No one could have predicted…”
Although betting on a group of Americans to know history is generally not a winning proposition. Not to defend this loon, but there is that.
Rand Paul conveniently left out Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the Republican Party’s becoming the party of Jefferson Davis. He was the only President of the Confederacy.