Liberty Maven

Like my liberty-loving brethren I’m ecstatic tonight at Rand Paul completely trouncing Trey Grayson in the Kentucky Senatorial GOP primary, but what about tomorrow?

In between all of the surface-dwellers still attacking Paul because they think he was named after Ayn Rand (he was not), there is a mathematical hard truth that his campaign must come to grips with now that a new campaign is beginning. The numbers do not lie and they can be a bit sobering.

With 99.2% of the precincts reporting a full 167,286 more votes were cast in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary. Rand Paul’s total number of votes were less than the Democratic loser. Does this mean that Paul has an uphill battle for winning the general election against Democrat Jack Conway? Maybe, maybe not.

The fact is that there are nearly 600,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Kentucky yet they continue to elect Republicans for national office. The most recent Rasmussen poll released on May 3rd showed Paul beating Conway in the general with 47% to Conway’s 38%. It will be interesting to see the new polls now that the nominees are decided.

It will also be interesting to see how the Paul campaign shifts strategy for the general election. Will Paul be more apt to discuss areas where he and the Left see eye to eye like a non-interventionist foreign policy, getting the federal government out of the drug war, ending corporate welfare, and auditing the Federal Reserve? Will Paul successfully bring together the principled Left and the principled Right like he brought together major portions of the social conservative Right and the libertarian conservative Right during the primary campaign?

In his victory speech Paul gives no indication he will water down his message to appeal to the Left. Instead he makes the case that there are fundamental positions of the Tea Party movement that are non-partisan like term limits and balancing the budget. It appears Paul is going to remain steadfast to his limited government message and welcome everyone to join him if they so choose.This message and a rather flawless campaign won him nearly 60% of the GOP vote. Now it’s going to have to carry him to another victory next November.

When is the next money bomb?

The perfect response to a naysayer on twitter:

@kayak175: What will Republicans do when they find out Rand Paul wants 2 legalize pot & end wars abroad?

@Jdubsurfsnow: We’ll get high & protect the border.

Watch Rand Paul’s entire victory speech below from Fox News. Now it becomes time to start wondering when his father will announce his intentions for 2012. The momentum is towards liberty, and that is my kind of momentum.

And here is Sarah Palin (who endorsed Rand) with Sean Hannity reacting to the Rand Paul victory (Palin portion begins around 1:25):