Rand Paul’s new ad, released this weekend ahead of his announcement that he is running for president, is a bit…unusual, to say the least. Instead of leading with America, apple pie, and corn fields, Rand Paul chose to lead with — I am not making this up — CNN’s Candy Crowley!
The video, called “A Different Kind of Republican Leader,” features a lineup of liberal media personalities praising Rand Paul, including Crowley, Jon Stewart, and Chris Matthews as well as former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who has spent the last year trashing nearly every conservative tenet of the Republican Party. In fairness, the video does also include Sean Hannity and Chris Wallace from Fox News, interspersed with clips of Paul’s speech at CPAC.
Paul’s decision to feature the media — the conservative-hating the liberal media — in an ad the week he’s announcing that he’s running for president is a little (actually, a lot) tone deaf. Has there been a single poll of Republican primary voters in which “approved by the liberal media elites” is a top priority? If there is, I haven’t seen it.
It leaves me wondering who Rand Paul is trying to impress with this ad. The media? The Republican establishment? Big money donors? “Even Candy Crowley loves him!” is not exactly rallying cry for the GOP base, is it?
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