Well, now Rand Paul has really stepped in some trouble: He has just denigrated Donald Trump — which means that a return round of brutal (and comical) insults from The Donald can’t be far behind.
Appearing Thursday on CNN, Paul responded to a question about Trump’s dominance in the polls by complaining about the disproportionate media coverage The Donald has received. “If you would give some other candidates time from eight in the morning ’til eight at night all day long every day for three weeks, I’m guessing some other candidates might rise as well.”
By contrast, Paul said, nobody is talking about his flat tax plan. And by the way, if he had “a billion dollars’ worth of advertising” in free media attention, he’d be up in the polls, too.
“But there’s gonna be time for that,” Paul said. “I think this is a temporary, sort of loss of sanity. But we’re gonna come back to our senses and look for somebody serious to lead our country at some point.”
But does Senator Paul think, Wolf Blitzer asked, that the 20-some percent of Republicans supporting Trump have lost their sanity?
Paul clarified: “No, I think what they are is they’re hungry for someone who will tell the truth — who will say Washington is broken, and that we really have to, you know, start over, have term limits, wash out the place, cleanse the place up here. Absolutely, he’s tapping into that vein. But the thing is, we also have to have a serious discussion of how we’re gonna do it.”
One does have to wonder, though, whether Paul just spoiled his chances to be the candidate who will get that support if and when the time comes, after he just questioned the sanity of Trump’s supporters. After all, it’s not that different from John McCain’s remark about Trump and “the crazies” that got the last wave of controversy started.
And on another note, does anyone remember back when Rand Paul first ran for Senate in 2010, and a lot of people thought that his rise represented a loss of sanity?
