Rand Paul's White Supremacy Double Game

Continued from previous page

[I]t was my opinion then and it is my opinion now that Jack is the most common kind of racist, the one that doesn’t realize that he is one.

For his part, Hunter insists he’s not a racist, and says he’ll even retire his “Southern Avenger” persona because it “has now been so mischaracterized” (he doesn’t venture to say what the proper characterization might be.) He depicts the Washington Free Beacon’s story as another effort by neoconservatives to damage Rand and Ron Paul, although he doesn’t have the courage to spell out what the schism is about: Ron Paul’s skepticism about U.S. support for Israel and his broader anti-interventionist foreign policy views, which his son has blunted in the service of mainstream political success.

“It was enraging to watch neoconservatives, liberals and even some actual racists speculate about what I believe, based on what they were eager to portray me as believing. Not surprisingly, their speculations almost always suited their own political purposes,” Hunter told Antle. “The neoconservatives, who first ran and promoted this story, would much rather argue about the Civil War than the Iraq War.”

(Slight digression here: What is it about the modern GOP that so many of its leaders are correct on the righteousness of either the Civil War or the Iraq War, but rarely both?)

Will the Hunter flap hurt Rand Paul if he runs for president in 2016? For better or worse – better with the far-right GOP base, worse with the general electorate – Paul has his own record of civil rights skepticism and states’ rights support. Early in his Senate run he went on record with Rachel Maddow opposing the Civil Rights Act because it infringed on the right of private businesses to discriminate. And just two weeks ago, defending Hunter, he endorsed a view of Abraham Lincoln as a tyrannical, racist hypocrite that’s a staple of the neo-Confederate attack on our 16th president (minus the “ John Wilkes Booth Was Right” spin that Hunter gave it).

Both Paul and Tea Party darling Sen. Ted Cruz were in Iowa this past weekend to speak to the state’s powerful religious conservatives (the National Review’s Robert Costa said Cruz, who “had more of the pastors swooning…won Round One.” Paul currently holds a slight lead in Iowa polls of the GOP field, and the state party is led by two Ron Paul 2012 staffers, but the white state that gave Barack Obama his big 2008 win might not be the best place for a full-throated states’ rights campaign. Maybe that’s why Paul made a point of meeting with black and Latino ministers during his visit.  He continues to be an advocate of GOP minority outreach, while also defending his neo-Confederate aide Jack Hunter. We’ll see if that’s a winning formula for 2016, but it’s probably an easier needle to thread without Hunter on his staff.