Fittingly enough for an article that talks about how Paulism is becoming more mainstream within the GOP, the conservative movement's flagship mag respectfully declares Dr. No to be "no longer a fringe figure." Moments of interest:
"When it comes to practical politics, the face of the party has changed. Any place we go, I get invited to Republican meetings. Before, we had to have our own meetings, or we might have been excluded.
"Now we go, and I think, wow, this is really nice. I get to meet run-of-the-mill Republicans," he chuckles. "We used to think of that group as the businessmen and the bankers, and all the establishment people that make up the Republican party. When we visit these days, we find out that they look like us." […]
"The times are changing," Paul says softly, his hands clasped like a country doctor. "I always predicated that our foreign policy is going to change, that we will come home, not because I gave a great speech, but because we are broke." […]
"I think the country is in big trouble if we don't shift our policies," he says. "But replacing a conventional Democrat with a conventional Republican will not change anything. The attitude toward the Federal Reserve will stay the same, as will the attitude toward entitlements. People will still attempt to simply tinker around the edges."
There's an interesting section where Paul criticizes GOP Obama's-a-socialist attacks, saying "You will not hear me saying that we have to stop Obama or something like that," and then this obligatory what-about-Gary-Johnson bit:
"The more the merrier," he says. "In the narrow, political sense, I don't think it hurts. It might make me a better candidate."
Paul emphasizes that he is on an educational mission. "[Johnson] might appeal to a different group of libertarians," he says. "My goals may be a little different for the long term, but that does not mean that we should be sharp political competitors.
"It is good to have a couple people up there during debates, it gives us both more credibility. During the first debate in South Carolina, when they quizzed me about drugs, he backed me up."
Whole thing here. I talked about the Paul/Johnson complementarianism (sic) in my latest magazine column, and you can read Reason on the doctor here.
