Jace Brady
[email protected]

Hi, my name is Jace, and I am recovering Rand Paul addict. The candidate visited the University of Iowa campus on Monday, and while I still agree with Rand on many issues, his campaign has a dearth of policy solutions. This, of course, is not uncommon for campaigns in this stage of the presidential race, but on Paul’s campaign website, all you can find on national security is three short and insubstantial paragraphs. His section on criminal-justice reform is nearly four times longer. While Paul could be a strong candidate in a different election, he needs to realign his priorities if he wishes to remain competitive in this race.

Paul is often seen as an isolationist and believes that the United States has gotten involved in too many issues that don’t concern us. While I would love for America to become the hermit of the world when it comes to military interventions, such strong beliefs demand equally forceful policy initiatives to determine how we keep our country safe without our historical intercessory tendencies. Three paragraphs of fluff is insufficient to secure my confidence in Paul’s ability to keep America safe while recusing us from our historical obligations on the world stage.

Of course not all of Paul’s policies are flawed, but without Chris Christie constantly bombarding Paul with fascist rhetoric, it is difficult to impassion the electorate on what many Americans consider minor issues. It is difficult to construct a campaign focused on these issue when the majority of Americans are struggling to pay their bills.

Paul’s greatest feat has been coalescing a strong following of young Americans who are passionate about smoking pot. His decriminalization policies and recommendations for restructuring the criminal justice are compelling, but again, they lack the substance needed to propel a senator to the White House. Americans are much more focused on immigration reform, revitalizing the economy, and handling such foreign threats as ISIS. Paul has solutions to all of these problems, but it seems that he has allowed his focus to be diluted by less consequential social issues.

Paul is a great senator and strong defender of freedom and liberty. He is more willing than almost any other senator to take unpopular stances and subject his fellow senators to lengthy filibusters. He has many strong policy positions, but I believe that his priorities on his campaign are misplaced. This is not entirely his fault, as the media have painted him as the defender of certain rights that are not hot campaign topics, and in a different election he may very well perform better. However, in this election, we need to focus on how to fix our economy. For those of you concerned about the social issues for which Paul fights, know that the wall of social oppression has already started to crumble and will continue to cascade, but social rights with a collapsed economy benefit no one.