Rand Paul: "I want more people to vote, not less”

Rand Paul, who's clearly running for president in 2016, was in Raleigh yesterday to campaign for Thom Tillis for U.S. Senate. He endorsed Tillis's main Tea Party rival Greg Brannon in last May's primary.

Paul is seriously out of step with Tillis on the issue of voter suppression. Tillis engineered the passage of the new voter suppression laws in North Carolina (parts of which were overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday). A major portion of that new law shortened Early Voting by a full week.

This is what Rand Paul told the Associated Press earlier this week:

“I think it’s a dumb idea to spend a lot of time on Republicans trying to change early voting. My position is I want more people to vote, not less.” ...

He is critical of the GOP’s push to require voters to present photo identification at the polls and reduce early voting in some states, moves criticized as efforts to suppress participation by minority voters who typically support Democrats....

“I’ve cautioned Republicans, ‘You need to be aware of peoples’ perceptions,'” he said. “If the perception [of voter suppression] is out there, why don’t you start talking about something good, like restoring peoples’ right to vote?”

It's not just a "perception," Mr. Paul, especially in Watauga County but also across North Carolina, that Republicans in power are doing everything they can to discourage the votes of people that they perceive as opposing their policies. One of those groups singled out for suppression are young people, the demographic that Rand Paul will be seriously courting in 2016.

How out of step is Rand Paul with the mainstream of the contemporary GOP? How many North Carolina Republicans would actually say the words, "I want more people to vote, not less," and if by accident or by design that line should actually fall from Republican lips, do you actually believe they would mean it?

Thom Tillis and Rand Paul, together? Naw. We ain't buying it. It's pure self-interested politics, a shadow cast on the wall, a game, and a fraud.