[I realize that some other diarists have also written on this general topic, but I think this diary is different enough to stand on its own. Cross-posted from my blog.]
Rachel Maddow had Rand Paul, the freshly minted winner of the Kentucky Republican primary, on her show tonight. She focused on his statements regarding the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited, among many other things, racial discrimination (e.g., segregation or exclusion) in public accommodations. For example, these prohibitions finally put an end to segregated restaurants and many other forms of public and private discrimination, which were highly prevalent throughout the Jim Crow era.
Rachel asked Rand, repeatedly, whether he thinks the government should have the power to forbid these forms of discrimination in privately owned public accommodations. He simply would not answer the question. And it wasn't a gotcha. It wasn't a trick. It was a pivotal question of immensely important policy and law that sits squarely within the libertarian theories that people like Rand glibly espouse: that the government is so limited in its power (via the Commerce Clause, for instance) that it cannot constitutionally prohibit restaurant, hotel, cafeteria, sports arena, or movie theater owners from segregating or otherwise discriminating against people on the basis of race, among other things.
Why couldn't Rand answer the simple and straightforward question Rachel repeatedly put to him? Why didn't Rand have the courage of his convictions? Shouldn't he be proud of his theories of the Constitution, which I presume he strongly believes? Shouldn't he at least own up to the inevitable consequences of his otherwise proudly announced legal philosophy? Interestingly enough, no, he couldn't, instead repeatedly taking refuge in the red herring that he is personally opposed to discrimination of any sort.
To this, Rachel smartly replied to the effect that that this was like saying he likes ice cream - that one might oppose racial discrimination and prejudice as a personal matter, but that says nothing about whether the owner of a restaurant or bowling alley has the power to do it if he wishes. Sure, one could say - at least in the current era - that a restaurant or other public accommodation that refuses to serve black people would be widely and immediately scorned to the point where their business would likely suffer, and therefore (in most cases) market incentives today strongly discourage such practices.
Well, if that's such a compelling argument, shouldn't the ostensibly straightforward and principled Rand Paul be able to say so, and to say unequivocally, without rhetorical Neo-bullet-dodging, that he thinks public accommodation laws should be struck down? By not doing so, isn't Rand simply engaging in the same cynical and dishonest games as the most feckless Washington politician and, worse, cloaking the ugly truth of his political and legal beliefs?
I'd like to say that this could be a significant problem for Rand, but we are talking about Kentucky, after all. We'll have to see. Regardless of prevailing attitudes, a smart opponent would find the winning rhetorical angle to use against Rand's glaring vulnerability on this issue and pursue it aggressively. Is Jack Conway such an opponent?
UPDATE:
I would be remiss not to add that, via Drdemocrat, quoting Politico, Rand Paul has previously come fairly close to expressing his views on this subject:
Paul explained that he backed the portion of the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public places and institutions, but that he thinks private businesses should be permitted to discriminate by race.
"I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that," he said. "I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners...."
Getting warmer, Rand, warmer.
UPDATE II:
Following up on tiimbitz4786's comment, I do think his actual views were fairly clear from his answers, at least to a knowledgeable observer. He does not believe the federal government can constitutionally prohibit discrimination in privately owned public accommodations, otherwise he could have answered the question clearly in the affirmative.
However, he repeatedly dodged the direct question, moving it into theoretical territory and red herrings such as his personal beliefs on discrimination generally. Doing this, to me, shows that he has a serious vulnerability on the issue, and he knows it. It also shows that he is far from the paragon of principle he would have people believe, and this severely undercuts a major basis for his appeal as a candidate.
Aside from these mostly political observations, I also want to emphasize that I think his views are substantively wrongheaded and, if they had been adopted by the Supreme Court, a great many severe injustices would have continued unremedied. Although it wasn't always the case, Americans today overwhelmingly consider such civil rights laws to represent a critically important redemption for our country from a terrible era of institutionalized, widespread oppression and terror. And while these laws certainly didn't magically expunge discrimination from our society or forever exorcise our lingering demons of injustice, they radically improved countless lives, affirmed the essential humanity of all people, and created a critical legal and political predicate for further progress.
That is, after all, why Rand Paul finds it so difficult to explicitly state his position on the topic.
UPDATE III:
Conservatives may be noticing this problem too. Here's one poster at Red State; I don't know who this is or whether his observations are widespread among conservatives, but it is interesting nontheless:
I just watched Rand Paul on Rachel Maddow, I’m sorry to say that he has a firm grasp on the 3rd rail of Racial Politics and doesn’t seem to want to let go. This will be a HUGE issue in MSM over the next few days. While he says a lot of great things about abhorring discrimination and his support for anti-discriminatory laws for public places, he just can’t bring himself to agree with segregated lunch counters being unlawful. His elusiveness was painful to watch. It would have been better to be direct rather than evasive. I understand his point completely — I lean libertarian and as a strict matter of Constitutional principle, he may be right. But a Senate race is the wrong place to have this discussion. If you think the MSM and Democrats misrepresent the Arizona mindset, wait til they get started on this.
Too bad, he would have been a great Senator.
UPDATE IV:
The Internet is afire with the same observation, from many different political quarters, that this interview was disastrous for Rand Paul, for the same reasons I discussed here. This definitely has the potential to become an explosive issue and persistent millstone around Paul's neck in the weeks or even months ahead. Paul is faced with three options now, all bad: (1) clearly state that he thinks public accommodations laws are unconstitutional and shouldn't have been passed, which will subject him to potentially fatal blasts of moral outrage; (2) reverse his apparent position so far and declare that he thinks these laws are valid, which will make him look unprincipled and craven; or (3) prolong the current torture by continuing to straddle the impossible line between the two.
I'll be honest - while I may strongly disagree with it, I can at least respect a principled legal argument that the Constitution does not permit federal laws against discrimination in privately owned public accommodations. If that is what Rand Paul believes, and it certainly seems that he does, I would have more respect for him if he openly and honestly said so than if he concealed his beliefs or - as he did with Rachel Maddow - attempted to obfuscate the issue.
He and I obviously have strikingly different views on this, but I can think of several arguments he might have employed in service of his actual beliefs and still emerged relatively intact. One of those potential arguments - really just a sense of perspective - is that the Constitution simply imposes limits on government that sometimes prevent highly popular or desirable outcomes, but this is the necessary cost of liberty and limited government in a constitutional republic such as ours. For instance, a law mandating that all "Muslim-looking" men between ages 18-28 be searched before boarding any airplane, train, or passenger ship might very well be surprisingly popular among many Americans, but this would be plainly unconstitutional and, therefore, forbidden.
Another potential argument, as I mentioned before, is that the solution to segregation and discrimination in places of public accommodation is not to pass constitutionally suspect laws, but to inflict economic and social punishment in the form of boycotts, public outrage, and so forth. In fact, there still exists a debate within the civil rights intellectual community today whether the boycotts and other direct actions during the civil rights era were a more powerful impetus than the formal laws passed around the same time.
Such arguments - among others - may have been difficult to make, and they certainly would have drawn criticism, but they also would have served Paul far better than trying to duck and run.
Well, too late now. Rand Paul flinched and tried to have it both ways, perhaps underestimating the withering rays of massive national attention (and Maddow's exceptional interview skills). Now he's in a pretty painful spot, and maybe not feeling so glib about his glibertarianism anymore.