There are numerous examples where Rand Paul supported or supports – depending on the time of day – the Republicans effort to suppress the vote through voter I’D measures.
That of course is not the news.
What made news was an apparent effort by the senator to distance himself from his fellow Republicans when he said that those in favor of voter restrictions should step back from marking it a central part of their platform.
“I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people,” he said.
Paul then goes on Hannity to sooth the base of the Republican party by reaffirming that he is in fact, in favor of voter ID laws, and that his original flip flop on the issue was “overblown.” The country’s drug policies have a restrictive effect on the minority vote, he said, while the GOP’s voter ID efforts may not.
Paul added that if the Republican Party is making voter ID a “central theme and issue,” his colleagues must be sensitive to how some minority voters will perceive those efforts as an attempt to shut them out of the voting process.
“I’m trying to go out and say to African-Americans ‘I want your vote, and the Republican Party wants your vote’ … we have to be aware that the perception is out there and be careful about not so overdoing something that we further alienate a block of people that we need to attract,” he said.
