By DEXTER DUGGAN
TEMPE, Ariz. — When national political candidates make speaking stops around the country, an additional message also can get delivered with heavy local implications.
Just before Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul stepped to the microphones for a campus appearance at Arizona State University in this Phoenix suburb, Arizona GOP State Sen. Kelli Ward presented the libertarian-inclined Paul to the cheering crowd after asking, “Who is here because they want to fight for freedom?” The audience cheered at Ward’s question.
Throughout the United States, Paul, a U.S. senator from Kentucky, is well-known for strong opposition to the overweening type of national-security government favored by none other than Arizona’s senior U.S. senator, John McCain.
Since he became a national figure, freshman Sen. Paul and long-serving McCain have tangled over their distinctly different views on the issue. Shortly before Paul’s talk here, the two U.S. senators again took verbal shots at each other over the best approach to national security.
Although unknown nationally, Ward, a conservative state senator, has said she’s considering running against political Goliath McCain in the 2016 GOP Senate primary here. She placed herself squarely against the Arizona establishment by stepping to the microphones before a crowd of more than 400 people including many young faces at the ASU student fitness center.
Ward’s website said she was honored to introduce Paul and added, “people want #liberty, #freedom & #privacy in our constitutional republic!”
The Phoenix area’s Republican Party was one of the talk’s hosts, so Paul wasn’t staging a rogue intrusion into Arizona. However, McCain’s machine is known to fiercely oppose candidates who challenge him.
In a 23-minute talk, Paul told the May 8 rally, “I am a Reagan Republican, through and through. . . . Reagan believed in peace through strength. Reagan didn’t believe intervention was always the answer.”
There are more international problems now “because we toppled secular governments and we got radical religious governments” in the Mideast, said Paul, wearing a white shirt and red tie, without a coat.
Beginning his talk, Paul said that even in 18th-century Britain, the government wasn’t supposed to issue general warrants, without naming someone, but tried to get away with that.
Americans today are being told their phone calls aren’t their own, Paul said. However, “You can’t just say, ‘I want every American’s phone records’. . . .
“It’s none of the government’s business” what’s on a person’s credit-card bill, he said, receiving cheers and whoops.
A conservative Arizona political activist who asked not to be named because of his work told The Wanderer there’s a positive aspect to McCain’s reputation of watching out for national security.
If Ward “is going to actually support Rand Paul, then she is taking a chance by supporting the candidate who fares the poorest when it comes to speaking to the GOP’s pro-national defense, national-security crowd,” the activist said in a May 9 email.
“That would be music to the ears of John McCain, for whom his greatest strength is arguably national defense and foreign policy.”
At the ASU talk, Paul recalled that in 2013, the U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied when denying the U.S. scooped up any type of data on millions of Americans. But NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed that lie, Paul said.
Mentioning Snowden’s name brought cheers from the ASU audience.
Referring to such broad data collection, Paul received cheers and applause when he said, “I think it should stop, and I want to be part of stopping it now.”
Collecting phone calls this way, Paul said, “is unconstitutional. . . . It’s none of the government’s damn business. . . .
“All of this was started by executive order,” he said. “If I become president, on Day One I will end it all.”
Without specifically naming some of his prominent senatorial foes, although directly hinting at their identities, Paul referred to McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham arguing against him on national security.
Government security already knew about a suspected Arizona terrorist killed in recent gunfire in Garland, Texas, and about the Boston Marathon bomber, Paul said, but that didn’t prevent their carrying out attacks. Maybe if the government weren’t watching so many people, he added, it could do better with the information it has.
It’s not hard for government to get a legitimate warrant, he said.
Paul’s press office issued a news release on the ASU event, quoting him:
“The leave-me-alone generation is a generation that believes they can conquer the world and solve any problem if left free to follow their dreams. I am here in Arizona to announce that I will fight for your right to be left alone. I will fight to protect your privacy. I will fight to keep the federal government out of Arizona, out of your home, out of your business, and out of your church!”
The reference to protection at church may have referred to Paul’s opposition to federal Obamacare mandates against conscience.
And, although it wasn’t a federal action, Paul recently said it’s time for civil disobedience when the police come to get a pastor’s sermons — as happened last year when the openly homosexual mayor of Houston moved against pastors who opposed her favored “gay rights” ordinance.
The Bill Of Rights
The day before Paul’s ASU talk, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled against the NSA’s warrantless, bulk collection of phone-call information.
In a May 7 news release, Paul reacted by saying: “This is a monumental decision for all lovers of liberty. I commend the federal courts for upholding our Constitution and protecting our Fourth Amendment rights. While this is a step in the right direction, it is now up to the Supreme Court to strike down the NSA’s illegal spying program.
“It is the duty of elected officials to protect the rights of all Americans, and Congress should immediately repeal the Patriot Act provisions and pass my ‘Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act.’ I will continue to fight to prevent the Washington Machine from illegally seizing any American’s personal communication,” he said.
Paul told the ASU audience that the GOP needs to be the party that honors “the entire Bill of Rights,” not only certain of its amendments.
Noting the growth of a national government that can’t even limit itself to spending $3.3 trillion a year, Paul concluded by observing that the federal establishment produces massive bills that nobody reads. “You remember [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi? She said we can read it [Obamacare] after it’s passed. . . .
“We’ve let too much power gravitate to the president,” Paul said, advising the GOP to deliver its message with passion and optimism.
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