RedState.com editor Erick Erickson saw Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) self-described “dumb ass” livestream of a day in the life of a presidential candidate this week as his campaign’s death knell.
“The whole thing is embarrassing,” Erickson, who had endorsed Paul’s 2010 Senate bid, wrote Thursday in a column titled “Rand Paul, It Is Time to Take Your Campaign Out Back and Shoot It.”
Paul’s staff livestreamed his campaign activities Tuesday. At one point, the Kentucky Republican read out one of the top Google search results for his name: “Is Rand Paul still running for President?”
“And uh, I don’t know—wouldn’t be doing this dumbass livestreaming if I weren’t,” Paul said. “So yes, I still am running for President. Get over it.”
Erickson noted that Paul told a reporter he didn’t even want to do the livestream in the first place. The livestream was a “desperate cry for attention,” he wrote, that revealed the Paul campaign’s decline.
“Paul’s strategic choices have been muddled and have all the hallmarks of a candidate micromanaging a campaign staff that will neither stand up to him, nor guide him, but can apparently bully him into a ‘dumb ass live stream,'” Erickson wrote. “When other candidates went to Iowa, Rand went to Alaska and Wyoming. He has marched to the beat of not just his own drummer, but a drummer no one else can hear.”
“Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), this was an interesting run and I am a fan of yours,” he added. “But your campaign is a bloody embarrassment that needs to be taken out back and put out of its misery.”
