General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why is Rand Paul polling so low among the R's? [View all]Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Secondly, his campaign has been horribly managed, and his media presence, messaging, platform, everything has been shit
Third, Donald Trump happened which stole 100% of the early media spotlight Paul was counting on, and Paul had no strategy to take back at least a piece of the media attention (although to be fair, none of the GOP candidates have, aside from maybe Carson)
Fourth, Paul GROSSLY overestimated how important the NSA would be as a campaign issue, after laying down a lot of groundwork in 2014 to be the "anti-NSA candidate"
Fifth, he pissed off Glenn Greenwald on his pro-Israel stance, so Glenn gave him the kiss of death on Twitter which really killed at lot of his dudebro support since Greenwald is a god to them...
Sixth, Paul's most fervent supporters tend to put niche political issues at the forefront, i.e., gold standard, audit the fed, etc. You aren't going to craft a good national campaign platform behind those issues...