Rand Paul

About

Rand Paul is an American physician and politician currently serving in the United States Senate as a member of the Republican Party representing the state of Kentucky. As a son of the prominent former Republican congressman Ron Paul, the senator has long been speculated as a potential candidate for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In early April 2014, Paul officially announced his candidacy for the 2015 U.S. presidential election.

Political Career

In 1984, Paul aided his father’s senatorial primary challenge against Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm. In 1988, Paul worked on his father’s presidential campaign as a Libertarian candidate. In 1991, Paul founded the anti-tax organization Kentucky Taxpayers United in response to Republican President George H. W. Bush breaking his vow to abstain from raising taxes. In 1996, Paul managed his father’s Congressional campaign in which he was successfully elected to the House of Representatives. During the 2008 presidential election, Paul assisted his father’s presidential campaign. In August 2009, Paul announced he would run for the Kentucky seat in the United States Senate as a Republican. In the 2010 general election, Paul defeated Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway. In February 2014, Paul joined a class-action lawsuit against the federal government along with the Tea Party-affiliated advocacy group FreedomWorks, charging that the collection of United States citizens phone records violated their Fourth Amendment rights.

Online History

March 2013 Filibusters

In March 2013, Paul filibustered voting for the nomination of John O. Brennan as the Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in protest of the Obama administration’s use of drones against noncombatants within the United States. That day, Paul’s filibuster was applauded by host Jon Stewart on the Comedy Central satirical news program The Daily Show (shown below). That month, Paul joined Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in filibustering federal gun control proposals.

Wikipedia Plagiarism Controversy

In October 2013, Paul quoted a section of a Wikipedia article for the 1997 science fiction film Gattaca without citing its source during a speech supporting Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. On October 28th, MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow discussed the alleged plagiarism during a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show (shown below).

Social Media Presence

On January 20th, 2015, Paul tweeted^[2] a Condescending Wonka image macro directed at United States President Barack Obama, which garnered upwards of 3,200 retweets and 3,000 favorites over the next three months (shown below, left). On January 22nd, Paul tweeted that Mitt Romney would pass a “common core” friendship bracelet to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, along with a photoshopped image containing a note with the word “friendship” misspelled (shown below, right). The tweet was subsequently deleted.

On January 29th, Paul posted a satirical “secret tape” featuring voice actors performing a mock conversation between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush (shown below). On April 7th, The Washington Post published an article highlighting many of Paul’s social media posts, referring to him as an “Internet troll”.

Presidential Candidacy Announcement

On April 7th, 2015, Paul declared his bid for the Republican Party nomination in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election (shown below).

That day, the @RandPaul^[3] Twitter feed began encouraging supporters to tweet photographs of themselves holding signs with the hashtag “#StandWithRand.” Shortly after, the feed retweeted a photoshopped picture of the Aurora, Colorado theater shooter James Holmes holding a #StandWithRand sign (shown below). The retweet was subsequently removed.

Also on April 7th, Paul’s campaign was criticized for hosting a banner image with the caption “Jew For Rand” on their official website (shown below). The banner was subsequently changed to “Jewish For Rand.”^[4]

Search Interest

External References