President Bill Clinton is traveling to Kentucky later this month to raise money for Democrat Alison Grimes’ campaign against Mitch McConnell, R-KY.
So fellow Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul (who supports McConnell) is condemning the Democratic Party for using a sexual “predator” as a cash cow for their political candidates.
Here’s Rand Paul on Meet the Press:
This attack is just pitch perfect:
1. It targets and shames one of the biggest Democratic fundraisers as we get closer to 2016.
2. Rand isn’t trying to use someone else’s adultery to gain advantage politically. He’s condemning the act of preying on unpaid college-aged interns. In other words, Rand is NOT wagging his finger at Bill Clinton and calling him a ‘sinner,’ he’s saying in effect: ‘We don’t allow this behavior in the workplace for a reason — because we don’t want men in their 40s and 50s taking advantage of college-aged women (who do not yet have a full-time job).
3. It pushes back against this whole fake War on Women campaign. Bill is traveling the country to raise money for a host of Democratic candidates — likely on the condition that said candidate will return the favor by endorsing his wife’s presidential run. So it is only proper and fair to ask these candidates — like Alison Grimes — if they think it’s perfectly acceptable for 40 and 50 year old men to prey on unpaid college-aged interns. If they believe it’s okay, then they are the ones engaged on a war on women.
4. This effort by Rand Paul could really work precisely because he’s spent years establishing a credible libertarian record — and he’s broken the media’s typecast of a Republican. No one considers Rand Paul a Jerry Falwell Republican. (When Rand Paul went to speak at Liberty it was understood as an attempt by Rand to ‘sell’ the evangelical crowd on new policies/new approach, etc.)
I think Rand Paul’s moves here are nothing short of brilliant. And it’s not because Rand Paul is throwing a bunch of anti-Bill Clinton red meat. I appreciate this because Rand is showing himself to be shrewd. Finally a Republican candidate who can play chess instead of checkers.
When the story on Clinton’s predatory attack on Lewinsky first broke, I was so frustrated that Republicans took the media’s bait and talked about how Clinton was basically just a naughty guy.
To me, it was an outrage that he was preying on a unpaid intern and promising her a job in return for sexual favors. Weren’t we told during the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings that there is certain behavior that is simply unacceptable in the workforce?
And you can’t say Clinton’s behavior toward an underling is acceptable because they are both consenting adults. We have rules in the workforce which are designed to prevent men (especially) from getting young women to offer up sex in exchange for a job that they get lined up. It is truly reprehensible. And it is exploitation of women.
Thankfully no Fortune 500 company changed their rules to allow Clinton-style predatory behavior from their executives.