Republican congressman Rand Paul is on record as being a Mitt Romney supporter. But that didn’t stop him from slamming Romney on the issues of Syria and spending.
In an exclusive interview with CNN last night, Paul took Romney to task for his position that as president, he would send arms to the Syrians and allow them to fight their own battles. Paul rightfully pointed out that since a potential Romney administration would not know the good Syrians from the bad ones, it could be handing sophisticated weapons over to terrorists, which would come back to haunt America.
Paul also criticized Romney over his plans to increase defense spending, despite the fact that the Defense Department has not asked for some of the weapons and spending Romney supports. Romney wants to spend $900 billion on defense, which is $300 billion more than President Obama has proposed. How he can do this while keeping his promise to cut the deficit is arithmetically confusing.
“You can’t always make your country stronger or more safe by throwing money at it,” Paul said in the interview. “Let’s figure out what we need to defend our country, to defend our vital interests. But let’s not be everywhere all the time.” Surprisingly, his stance on the military budget is actually more in line with President Obama’s — even though he claims to still be a faithful Republican who will vote for Romney.
Could this friendly-fire from Rand Paul have a devastating effect on Mitt Romney and his quest for the presidency?
"Could this friendly-fire from Rand Paul have a devastating effect on Mitt Romney and his quest for the presidency?"
Well. We'll see.
It certainly won't hurt him with *base* repub voters who seem to be war-loving Christians who worship American military *Might.*
OTOH: Many, if not most, actual Conservatives (NOT to be confused with *base* republican voters) want no parts of Romney's *Bush/Cheney neoCON doctrine. SEE: several related pieces over @ The American Conservative..i.e… "Romney’s Foreign-Policy Speech: More War, Bigger Budgets"
Read: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/romneys-fo…
But that doesn't mean they won't vote for him.
Likewise, I don't think libertarians, or libertarian-leaning voters would support his foreign policy. But, again, that doesn't mean they won't vote for him.
Which leaves only Independents. Will this be enough to turn most of them off?
Maybe(?) …….Maybe not(?)