The Only Losers Are the Neocons

Wednesday 19 May 2010 - Filed under Government + Rand Paul

David Boaz via Cato-at-Liberty:

The big-government Republican establishment rallied to Grayson’s side against the previously unknown opthalmologist from Bowling Green. Late in the campaign, Grayson ran ads featuring endorsements from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Cheney, Rick Santorum, and Rudy Giuliani. That’s more raw tonnage of Republican heavyweights than you’d see on a national convention stage.

And after all that Kentucky Republicans gave a 25-point victory to a first-time candidate who opposed bailouts, deficits, Obamacare, and the war in Iraq. That’s a sharp poke in the eye to the neocons who tried so hard to block him. They don’t want a prominent Republican who opposes this war and the next one, who will appeal to American weariness with war and big government. They don’t want other elected Republicans — many of whom, according to some members of Congress, now regret the Iraq war — to start publicly backing away from perpetual interventionism.

There were plenty of winners tonight. But the big losers were the neoconservatives, who failed to persuade the Republican voters of Kentucky that wars and bailouts are essential for national progress.

Let’s hope that the conservatards who put so much political capital behind that party hack Grayson all share his fate.

2010-05-19  »  madlibertarianguy