When it comes to Rand Paul’s college career, it seems like Jack Conway’s work here is done. Having turned a weird anecdote from one of Paul’s schoolmates at Baylor into a national firestorm, Conway seems ready to pull the Kentucky Senate race back toward something more in keeping with standard electoral politics.
Conway’s already suggested he doesn’t see Aqua Buddha as his closing argument, having told reporters that the now-infamous ad will likely be off the air by the end of this week. That means it’s time to get back to what Conway was doing before the ad dropped — namely, hitting the Republican Paul over and over for his semi-Libertarianism.
On CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Tuesday night, Conway continued to strongly defend the Aqua Buddha ad while seemingly trying to shift the conversation back to Paul’s weird past positions on things like Medicare, a national sales tax and that whole underground electrified border fence thing.
“That’s not all the sort of off-the-wall stuff he’s come out with,” Conway told Cooper during a discussion of the Aqua Buddha ad. “I mean, he’s questioned principles of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act, too.”
Watch Conway try to shift from Aqua Buddha to back to issues (and watch Cooper react with extreme skepticism):
Conway is putting his ad money where his mouth is, dropping a new ad on Kentucky that aims to associate Paul with his past support for the so-called Fair Tax — a 20-25 percent sales tax proponents say would be a more egalitarian replacement for the income tax. Greg Sargent broke the story this morning, and here’s the ad:
Sargent reports that the spot is “one of several that the Conway camp is considering airing for the final stretch.”
So will the national media follow Conway away from the Aqua Buddha ad and back to the issues? With Paul just starting to break his silence about his college years, it’s doubtful the press will drop the topic anytime soon.
But the new ad serves as good reminder that Aqua Buddha is not the only arrow in Conway’s quiver. Paul has said plenty of strangle things since leaving Baylor, and most of them are on tape.
The TPM Poll Average shows Paul leading the race 47.1-42.6.
