I Bet Rand Paul Never Felt He'd Be On The Same Team As Carl Sciortino About Anything

Who recalls Rand Paul, possibly high-- no one knows for sure-- telling a bunch of incredulous Republicans last month that "we're going to win when we look like America. We need to be white, we need to be brown, we need to be black, we need to be with tattoos, without tattoos, with ponytails, without ponytails, with beards, without." I wish we had a photo of him with a ponytail but, for now, the above picture of his tatts will have to suffice.

There are 5 candidates vying for Ed Markey's old House seat, MA-05. Blue America has endorsed the only commited, proven progressive in the race, state Rep. Carl Sciortino. So it didn't surprise us one bit this week when the Boston Globe reported that Sciortino was the only candidate willing to take a stand against bombing Syria. The 4 sheep he's running against, none of whom are leaders in anything, are all taking a wait-and-see approach.

“I believe that military intervention is premature and I would vote no. I believe it has the potential worsen the crisis,” said State Representative Carl M. Sciortino, who has worked to position himself to the left of his fellow candidates running for the Fifth Congressional District.

While Sciortino did not rule out supporting US military action in Syria in the future, he said it would have to be “a last resort” and that the United States currently had other options besides military force.

Four of his Democratic opponents today declined to take a similarly specific stance, saying it would be premature.

Sciortino is more aligned with Elizabeth Warren on this than Markey, who voted "present" on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today and who was one of the minority of House Democrats who voted to back Bush's push into Iraq. Warren, while complementing Obama for bringing Congress into the decision-making, told an AFL-CIO Meeting on Labor Day that "What the Assad regime did is reprehensible, but we have to consider what's in America's best interest."

John Kerry sparred with Rand Paul in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday afernoon and seemed disdainful when Paul questioned him sharply about his twisted and disingenuous rush to war. Kerry, scolding the petulent Paul:

“When people are asked, do you want to go to war in Syria? Of course not. Everybody, 100% of Americans would say no. We say no. We don’t want to go to war in Syria either. That’s not what we’re here to ask. The president is not asking you to go to war, he’s not asking you to declare war, he’s not asking you to send one American troop to war. He is simply saying we need to take an action that can degrade the capacity of a man who’s been willing to kill his own people by breaking a nearly 100-year-old prohibition, and will we stand up and be counted to say we won’t do that. That’s not-- you know, I just don’t consider that going to war in the classic sense of coming to Congress and asking for a declaration of war and training troops and sending people abroad and putting young Americans in harm’s way. That’s not what the president is asking for here.”

What a deceitful and misleading pile of steaming bunk! Kerry should be ashamed. These Obama folks are destroying what the Democratic Party stands for and ceding the high ground to a fool like Rand Paul, who is wrong about every issue under the sun except the issues Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell speech. Thank God for Democrats like Carl Sciortino. If you'd like to see him win this primary next month (October 15), please consider making a donation to his campaign.

OK, get that picture of Paul and his friend out up top out of your mind for a moment. This morning Chris Cillizza made an excellent point about how Paul's struggle to stop Obama from dragging us into a war over Syria is a battle for the soul of the GOP-- not to mention the GOP 2016 presidential nomination, which, with Hillary's endorsement of war, suddenly look like it could be worth something.

“What you have occurring is the first real policy engagement between a resurgent realist foreign policy worldview lead by Sen. Paul, versus the interventionist McCain and Graham wing which has been dominant in the party since 9/11,” said one Paul ally familiar with the senator’s thinking. “The debate on foreign policy and the appropriate use of U.S. military power was going to be happening at some point, but it is now happening in a case that creates an excellent opportunity for Sen. Paul.”

Paul is clearly embracing that opportunity-- as he not only bantered back and forth with Secretary of State John Kerry during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the matter Tuesday but then told reporters on a conference call later in the day that he has been ”talking to other senators, who I think are like-minded. I’m also talking to conservative constitutionalists in the House.”

How the debate in Congress plays out over the next few weeks-- particularly among so-called “establishment” Republicans in the House and Senate-- will serve as the first major test of not only how much power Paul actually has within the Capitol but also how much the Republican Party has (and/or is) changing.

...Assuming the resolution passes the Senate-- and even Paul conceded during Tuesday’s hearing that is the likely outcome-- the next test of the Kentucky senator’s influence will come in the House, where Republicans are not only in the majority but there are a large(r) cadre of libertarian-minded GOPers.

If the measure fails in the House, Paul is likely to get a big piece of the credit/blame-- particularly since House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have come out in support of the resolution.

“Success for Sen. Paul on this will be demonstrating there are a larger number of Republicans, both elected and policy experts, who agree with his assessment of the situation as it relates to our national interests, the strategic objectives, and the potential consequences,” said the Paul source.

Win or lose on the coming votes, Paul has already succeeded at one level. He has installed himself at the center of a critical foreign policy debate that has both short and long term impacts and consequences-- and in so doing has presented himself in a very real way as a different sort of Republican spokesman/candidate.

“What I find impressive is that while he has only been here a short time he is immediately looked to by his colleagues and the media as a guide to what a huge chunk of voters are thinking,” said Billy Piper, a former chief of staff to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “You may agree with his views or not, but at the end of the day he is thoughtful and clearly has the pulse of a large segment of the population.”