Rand Paul’s tough choice

Rand Paul, trying to head off a rebellion back home, promised Monday to fully pay for changes to his state’s presidential nominating process that would allow him to seek two different offices in 2016.

Despite his endorsement of the caucus proposal, McConnell said he would not talk to party chairs and lobby for approval.

This week, conservative WDRB.com columnist John David Dyche wrote that Paul should choose between the Senate and presidential campaigns.

If it’s approved, Paul would be allowed to run for president in Kentucky during the March caucus and also for his Senate seat in the May primary.

On the ground in Kentucky, Paul’s team has also engaged in a statewide lobbying effort to convince central committee members to support the plan by assuring them it won’t cost the state party. A campaign staffer said Paul is now in Haiti performing eye surgeries; an email sent to his press spokesman Sergio Gor yielded an out-of-office message saying, “Thank you for your message”.

Paul said in a letter to members of the 334-member committee this weekend that to make sure that the caucuses would be funded at no cost to the Republican Party of Kentucky, “I have transferred $250,000 in an RPK account to begin the funding”. He pledged to boost or switch one other $200,000.

But on Tuesday, McConnell said he thinks the party should approve the caucus proposal – as long as Paul covers the cost.

The Paul campaign announced the local stops as part of a five-state western tour.

“An additional $150,000 to $250,000 will be raised by charging Presidential candidates $15,000 to register”.

The latest CNN/ORC presidential poll puts Paul in the middle of the pack with just 6% support among registered Republican voters nationally. “Similar fees are charged in other states”, Paul told the central committee members in the letter. “That’s gone from about 80 percent of the people I’ve talked to from about ten person of people who bring that up now”.

McConnell did not take questions regarding GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, whom Paul has engaged in ads and from the stage during the first Republican presidential debate.