Ron Paul’s son, Rand Paul, is running to replace crazy Jim Bunning in the U.S. Senate, and he just won the endorsement of Sarah Palin. The establishment candidate is Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (no relationship to Alan). Now, I want to be careful to note that a son does not necessarily share the political views of his father (even if he was named for Ayn Rand). But it appears Rand Paul shares with his father that strange hybrid worldview than allows a libertarian to be anti-choice. I can’t quite wrap my head around the cognitive dissonance it takes to be an anti-choice libertarian, but whatever.

Looking at his issues page, it appears that Rand shares some of his father’s views on national security. He says, “I believe that when we must fight, we declare war as the Constitution mandates…” In other words, no more using the military to fight brushfire wars that Congress hasn’t explicitly authorized. This questioning of the bipartisan Cold War national security state is more common on the left, and it surely infuriates John McCain when it manifests itself on the right. I can only imagine how pissed off McCain is to learn that his running mate is now a Paulinite.

I know a lot of liberals who are attracted to elements of Paulism. They like his positions on our imperialism and the War on Drugs, to choose just two examples. But I know John McCain doesn’t agree. In fact, almost no Republicans agree. Yet, Palin endorsed Rand Paul over the establishment candidate.

To be honest, I don’t think Palin has a clue what kind of beast she is messing with. It was Bill Kristol and his friends who convinced McCain to pick Palin in the first place. Kristol’s whole universe is built around our empire. He must be pretty miffed to see Palin turn into a Paulist. I find the whole thing amusing. But it’s also somewhat dangerous. Ron Paul is right about a few things but he and his followers are basically insane. It will do no one any good if they start winning elections.