Rand Paul will need to broaden his appeal far beyond his father’s hard-core supporters if he hopes to win the GOP nomination his father never could. But some members of that core said he was losing them by adopting policies closer to the GOP mainstream.
“He is the ‘Star Wars, Episode I,'” said Kent Ohler, 38, who records sound for TV and movies. He meant that the younger Paul was like the long-anticipated but largely disappointing sequel to the “Star Wars” movie franchise. “You have to like him to some degree, just because the name’s still stuck [on him]. But at the end of the day, he’s just not freakin’ right.”
Ohler and his younger brother Adam, sitting next to him, took the analogy further: Rand Paul’s endorsement of Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 election was his “Jar Jar Binks” — comparing the Romney endorsement to the annoying alien that many “Star Wars” aficionados said made the “Phantom Menace” prequel irretrievably bad.
I’d say Rand Paul’s desire to dismantle the social safety net is his Dex’s Diner, his foreign policy is his General Grievous, and his toilet tirade is his Lumpy.