Rand Paul and the Insulated Politician

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

As much as they try, politicians running serious campaigns for president are never going to be "one with the people," and I think it's a bit silly to expect them to be.  I frequently hear comments about how people want a president that they can "have a beer with," and I think this is absolute lunacy; I personally want a president that can make strategic decisions for national safety during a crisis and who has an ambitious agenda for the country that they're willing to pitch throughout their campaign and term.  However, there's something to be said for a candidate being too insulated from the press and public, and we saw that on full-display yesterday when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) launched his presidential campaign.  The senator, still in his first-term of office, is expected to be a major contender for the Republican nomination, and with his Libertarian viewpoints, may well shake up the expected dynamics of the Republican primary by getting a different breed of voters to the polls.  However, his launch was at best middling and at worst showed serious flaws in him as a candidate, and that was just on Day 1.

The big problem was an interview that he did with Today Show news anchor Savannah Guthrie.  During the interview, Ms. Guthrie asked the senator about how his views, particularly on foreign policy in Iran, have shifted from his initial senate campaign to his presidential campaign, as his public rhetoric has started to fall more in-line with the traditional Republican viewpoint.  Instead of answering what should have been a question his team should have forced him to prep (it was a pretty easy line of questioning to predict, considering the news regarding nuclear talks in Iran and the hardline the Republican Party is taking against the president on the issue), he interrupted her, criticized her line of questioning, and chastised her for "editorializing," largely ignoring what is going to be a question he'll have to answer in debates from now until the end of the elections.

The problem for Paul isn't just that he avoided the question, though, but that he criticized Guthrie in a similar way to an interview he did earlier this year with CNBC's Kelly Evans, where he frequently interrupted and chastised her over not giving him the time to answer questions or letting him frame the questions.  Afterwards Paul said that he was an "equal opportunity annoyer" for journalists, but most news outlets have pointed out that FOX News' Sean Hannity presented a similar style of questioning to Guthrie and Evans, and he didn't get interrupted in a similar manner.

This is not to say that Paul specifically is calling out female journalists in a different way than male, but it is saying that that's the way it's starting to look, and both he and his campaign should have known this and prepped for it.  This is part of a larger trend that most candidates have had trouble with-not knowing how to buck their own preconceived notions.  We saw this in recent weeks with Hillary Clinton's "non-rollout" rollout, where she seemed exasperated by the press when questioned about her emails at the State Department, feeding into an out-of-touch narrative.  We saw this when Sarah Palin's flub about seeing Russia from her house turned her from trailblazer to punchlline.  We saw this perhaps best displayed in 2012, when Mitt Romney repeatedly was asked about his tax returns and views on numerous issues and he dodged the question.  This is something that Barack Obama probably has gotten more than any other modern politician in the social media age (and is why he's president instead of a number of these other potential White House occupants); you can't turn off the media, since it's always in people's ears.  And you can't live in a bubble-people are constantly forming opinions, and while they're willing to be transient about those opinions, with SO many Republicans running for president right now, Rand Paul can't risk being tossed aside as the media inevitably winnows out the tiers of candidates.  He doesn't have the institutional advantages of Jeb Bush, the shiny conservative credentials of Scott Walker, or even the new kid on the block aspect of Marco Rubio.  He's already got an albatross in the public perception of his father, his views on certain issues make Wall Street donors think about "Hillary 2016" at the prospect of him winning the nomination, and he has waffled on more major issues than any Republican running.  It's hard to imagine that his staff can be blamed for his poor rollout since they certainly knew he had issues with trying to frame debates and had a growing reputation for treating female journalists differently than male.  It's the candidate himself who seems incapable of changing, which is a huge problem in a fluid campaign that will be chronicled on social media for the entire cycle.  There will be huge pressure on Paul the next time he is interviewed by a female journalist (particularly one that isn't on FOX News), and the next time he is interviewed by either Evans or Guthrie (and it's a long presidential season, it's extremely likely he'll speak with both before voting even begins) not to appear condescending, and if he does, he risks this being a key aspect of his narrative, particularly with the media focusing on his opponent Hillary Clinton being the first female presidential candidate.

So Rand Paul has now painted himself into a self-made pickle, and Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush should all take a lesson here-your public perceptions, whether fairly-earned or not, are going to haunt you and you can't just assume that your skills at maneuvering away from a question are going to work.  Your potential supporters are watching, and they want a candidate who can react and realize that the American people deserve answers, even if the questions are tough or not what you were anticipating.