Topic: GOP - Rand Paul's Presidential Highlight Reel w/ his Libertarian Twist - page 58. (Read 205829 times)

An early look at likely Iowa Republican Caucus participants shows a strong conservative tilt as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leads the pack with 25 percent, twice as high as his nearest rival, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Voters who identify as "very conservative" make up 45 percent of the caucus participants surveyed by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. Tea Party supporters make up 32 percent of likely caucus-goers and Walker gets 33 percent of that Tea Party vote.

There is a horse race for second place, with 13 percent for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 11 percent each for Michigan physician Ben Carson and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and 10 percent for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. No other candidate is above 5 percent and 9 percent are undecided.

Walker gets 13 percent when caucus participants name their second choice, with 11 percent for Bush and 9 percent each for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Paul.

In a combination of first and second choices, Walker tops the list with 37 percent, with 21 percent for Paul, 20 percent for Bush, 19 percent for Carson and 18 percent for Huckabee.

NBC News political director and host of "Meet the Press" Chuck Todd says Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul will be a formidable candidate for president should he decide to seek the Republican nomination next year.

Todd spoke Tuesday on the campus of Murray State University before he delivered the school's 2015 presidential lecture. He said he thinks Paul could overcome a deep divide with his own party over issues like foreign policy and prognosticators should underrate Paul’s chances "at their own peril."

“The insider world of the Republican party kind of writes him off,” Todd said. “They know he’s a powerful force, but they don’t think he can win the nomination. And yet I look at our polling and with independent voters, he does better than any other Republican. With young voters, he does better than any other Republican. So, this is a case where this is why we have campaigns.”

Todd said Paul is a “tier 1” prospective candidate alongside former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Paul is expected to announce his intentions for 2016 in the next six weeks.

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Casino magnate and Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, one of the GOP’s most forceful advocates for a hawkish foreign policy, is willing to fund an effort to stop Rand Paul from securing the party’s presidential nomination, should the libertarian-leaning Kentucky senator’s campaign pick up steam.

The revelation comes in a New York Times analysis of the GOP’s internal divisions over foreign policy heading into next year’s campaign. The rise of the Islamic State militant group has reinvigorated interventionists like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), both of whom would make national security and global affairs central themes of their presidential campaigns, should they run. Meanwhile, Paul is coming under withering intra-party criticism due to his general reluctance to support military force and his backing for the Obama administration’s positions on the Iranian nuclear negotiations and the diplomatic rapprochement with Cuba.

“The guy who’s now got the biggest challenge because of this is Rand Paul,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, told the Times, speaking of the GOP’s increased attention to foreign policy. “The Rand Paul worldview, which I suspect will change, is just incompatible with reality.”

While it remains to be seen how Paul’s all-but-certain campaign will perform, Adelson is telling associates that he’ll bankroll an effort to thwart the senator should he come within reach of securing the party’s nod, the paper reports.

Though Adelson has yet to back a 2016 candidate, GOP hopefuls are vying assiduously to secure his support in next year’s contest. Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and John Kasich have all made sojourns to Las Vegas to curry favor with Adelson, who contributed $150 million to Republican candidates and outside groups during the 2012 campaign. Adelson backed Gingrich in that year’s GOP primaries, pouring $15 million into his campaign. While Gingrich lost the nomination to Mitt Romney, Adelson’s contributions kept Gingrich’s campaign afloat far longer than it would otherwise have remained above water.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's push for a Republican presidential caucus in Kentucky, lending heavy weight Tuesday to a proposal that had raised concerns among some members of the state GOP's executive committee.

Paul's push for a caucus in early 2016 would allow him to run for two offices in the same year despite a Kentucky law that prohibits a candidate from appearing on the same ballot twice.

The idea was initially met with "respectful skepticism" from McConnell, but after the two men met Monday to discuss the matter, McConnell decided to throw his support behind the idea. In doing so, McConnell joined a host of other big-name Kentucky Republicans backing the plan, including U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, who is running for governor.

Sherri was a little girl, born with big brown eyes and bouncing curls. She was the forth child born to her parents, but was the first girl. She was born into a seemingly normal family, with two parents and three older brothers. More often, this girl grows up into a lovely young woman, prepared to carve her place in the world. However Sherri's story was different.

Sherri became blind at a young age and her father did not want a daughter, especially not a disabled one. Her family had no money, and her brothers were never around. Her mother's mind seemed to live in a very dark and distant place, and she offered little guidance.

Her father cared more about whiskey and drugs than he did about his family, so too often, little Sherri was on her own.

She would try to search for her parents, someone to feed her and care for her -- but even when she did find them, her father would most often snatch her up and throw her in a closet so that she would stay out of his way. She spent the majority of the first six years of her young life in that closet. Maybe, in some ways, it was a blessing that she was blind during these times. The darkness of the small closet might not have been quite as scary.

When Sherri was seven, her father found another use for her. It was the most awful and vile thing that a father could do to his little girl. He repeatedly abused and raped her, over and over, year after year, until she was 11 years old, at which time, she became pregnant. It turned out to be a minor problem for her dad, which he took care of with his large leather boot firmly on her back, kicking her flat on her face at the bottom of the stairs, and ending the pregnancy.

During this time, Sherri's father would also beat her mother daily. Even though her mother wasn't there for her, Sherri loved her, and wanted to protect her. After all, it is all she'd ever known.

The abuse continued and her dad often ran out of money to supplement his habits.

That is when he discovered another use for his blind, teenage daughter.

He began selling her to different men for the night. They would pay him in cash or drugs. It didn't matter to him. He would send man after man into her room each night. Then, when he was done using her, he would throw her back in the closet, which locked from the outside.

This closet became Sherri's sanctuary. She knew that if she was in there, then she was going to be left alone -- at least for a little while.

One day, while Sherri was in her closet, she was feeling around through the clothes on the floor, looking for a place to lay her head. Instead, she found a guitar. She had never held or played a guitar, but she discovered that she loved the pretty sound it made when she thumbed her fingers across the strings. The strings would vibrate, and she would listen to the sweet, soothing sound. For the next several years, this sound blocked out all of the other noises. Sounds that used to frighten her were now replaced by the soothing sounds of the guitar.

Sherri did go to school when she could. She loved school, because it meant that she was not at home. She learned everything she could. She worked on her studies as much as possible -- and despite everything, she became valedictorian of her class, and received a full scholarship to college.

The blind little girl with the bouncing curls was now off on her own, finally escaping the dark hell that was all too familiar to her.

At least, this should have been her escape. But every weekend, her father would threaten to beat, rape, and even kill her mother if Sherri did not come home. So, feeling that it was her duty, Sherri would go home and face the abuse that she had suffered all her life, not realizing that she finally did have a choice.

One Sunday, one of Sherri's friends from school invited her to church. Sherri enjoyed church, and she made friends quickly there. One night, after the service, a couple of the women leaders asked Sherri about the visible scars and sores on her body. Sherri confided in them out of desperation, sharing her darkest secrets for the first time.

That same night, the women came to her dorm, gathered all of her stuff, and took her to a safe place -- the first safe place she had ever been -- a 50-acre farm in my home state of Kentucky.

This story is almost too horrible to be true, but it is. I can tell you this, because I recently sat across from Sherri while she shared her story.

FORT MYERS, Fla.- A possible candidate for President is making bold moves. Senator Rand Paul, R-KY, wants to win over conservative voters in Southwest Florida, despite its consideration by many to be home turf to former Governor Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio.

Senator Paul finds himself in an interesting position balancing his loyalty to Libertarian-leaning Republicans and attracting traditional conservatives.

While speaking with Republicans in Naples Saturday, Paul touted himself as a “different kind of Republican.”

“I think it’s important that we are boldly for what we are for. I think we need somebody who actually believes as Reagan did in peace through strength, but someone who also believes that the federal government needs to be smaller,” said Paul.

NAPLES, Florida — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tells Breitbart News that Senate Democrats need to drop their filibuster of the House-passed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill if they want to show Americans they can move beyond partisanship.

“The disappointing thing about the Democrats is they don’t seem to be able to get beyond partisanship to actually address important issues so I think there’s an important constitutional issue here between the separation of powers,” Paul said in an exclusive interview while on a trip. “It would be nice, I think, if some of the Democrats stood up and said ‘you know what? We need to reassert Congress’ authority even though this is a Democrat president. I will vote for congressional power here as opposed to presidential power.’ But not many of them will do it. In fact, right now none of them will.”

Democrats are currently blockading the DHS funding bill under orders from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid because the bill blocks funding for President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty orders. Some Republican establishment figures say that Congress should water down the bill and remove restrictions on executive amnesty, but Paul said the recent court order from federal judge Andrew S. Hanen that put a hold on Obama’s amnesty means Congress should stay strong and block all of Obama’s executive amnesty.

“It should give Congress even more backbone to stand up and oppose this because the courts have now said it’s illegal and they’re stopping it,” Paul told Breitbart News of the court order.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will speak at the popular South by Southwest music festival next month.Texas Tribune editor-in-chief Evan Smith will interview Paul about “how technology has transformed politics, campaigning, governing, and citizen engagement,” according to the SXSW website.

In addition to the five-day music and film festival, SXSW features panels of presenters that have turned it into a central meeting place for technology enthusiasts.

Paul is gearing up to run for president. His appearance at SXSW is further evidence that young voters and an aggressive digital strategy will be primary touchstones for a White House bid if he runs.

WASHINGTON — Last month, Rand Paul greeted a crowd of like-minded supporters: gun-rights enthusiasts with a libertarian bent in New Hampshire, the state where the Republican senator seems most likely to chase presidential primary votes.

Event organizers wouldn't let press into the event, devoted to guns, but reporters were able to see Paul greeting supporters in a black letterman-style jacket bearing the letters "NAGR."

The acronym stands for National Association for Gun Rights — an alternative group to the behemoth National Rifle Association, the group that NAGR says just isn't committed enough to the Second Amendment.

Paul routinely signs his name to their mailers. He's helped fundraise for the group on conference calls. But NAGR is just one of the wide network of libertarian activist groups that Paul remains aligned with, even as he prepares for a presidential bid this year.

The informal network of groups — NAGR, the Campaign for Liberty, the National Pro-life Alliance, and the National League of Taxpayers — are something of a holdover from Paul's more libertarian purist father. The groups operate independently from one another and from Paul, but their connections to the family run deep. Their activists provided a foundation of operative support for Ron Paul's presidential campaigns. But they didn't stop when the elder Paul retired: The groups fundraise aggressively and many have used Rand Paul's name to solicit donations and raise their profile.

Because every 2016 candidate now must be asked what they think about Rudy Giuliani saying President Obama doesn’t love America, yesterday Rand Paul got asked about it in an interview with Kentucky news station WAVE.

And, while Paul had nothing in particular to say about Giuliani, he did say, “I think it’s a mistake to question people’s motives. It’s one thing to disagree on policy.”

Paul said he’s not interested in questioning whether Obama’s a “good American or a bad American,” because while he may blame the president’s foreign policy for making the U.S. less safe, he’s not going to question whether Obama’s “well-intentioned.”

Rand Paul Taps Liberty Movement Leader As Iowa Political Director


More...http://blog.libertyconservatives.com/rand-paul-taps-liberty-movement-leader-as-iowa-political-director/

Sen. Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign, which in recent months has gone from being a strong possibility to a near certainty, has hired a new political director to conduct operations in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa.

Jonathan Van Norman, who served as former Rep. Ron Paul’s regional director in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District during his 2012 presidential run, will join an Iowa campaign team which is already staffed with several big names such as former Iowa Republican Party chairmen Steve Grubbs and AJ Spiker. In addition to his work for Ron Paul 2012, Van Norman’s impressive resume includes Liberty For All (a political action committee which proved crucial for Thomas Massie’s 2012 victory), the National Right To Work Committee, and most recently as a Regional Field Director for the Republican Party of Kentucky.

NAPLES, Florida — Wall Street seems to be wasting money on another Republican who may have no shot at the White House in former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of Bush’s biggest likely 2016 GOP primary opponents—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)—tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.

“I think his main electability problem is with the Republican base,” Paul said.

What you need, I think, is someone who has the ability to excite the Republican base and expand the party. You can’t have someone who is so moderate that they think they can get the moderate vote but can’t excite the Republican base.

I think that is the biggest obstacle he has to overcome, is that being a moderate in a conservative party is difficult. When you refer to conservatives in the third person, as he did recently, that makes it even more difficult I think to connect with conservatives. When the first person you call when you decide to run is Hillary Clinton, that doesn’t really endear you to the grassroots.

Paul is saying that Bush may attempt to muscle his way to the nomination by appealing to moderate GOP voters nationwide with big fundraising and big government support, but if somehow Bush comes away with the nomination he won’t be able to get conservatives to show up and vote for him in November 2016. That was the same problem Mitt Romney faced in 2012, and John McCain in 2008—meaning that if Wall Street backs Bush in the primary, it may be supporting the prospects of Hillary Clinton or another Democrat.

Paul tells Breitbart News that Bush is likely to face widespread resistance from many Republican voters in the state where he was governor: Florida.

“One thing I noticed this morning about being in Florida, an early primary state, is that if I were Jeb Bush, I’d be very worried about his Common Core position because the one thing I noticed about the crowd this morning was the unity and enthusiasm in opposition to Jeb Bush’s position on Common Core,” Paul said.

Paul was referring to a grassroots event with Collier County Republicans on Saturday morning, where he spoke for about 30 minutes then took questions.

“Sen. Paul, Jeb Bush—through his influence over our state legislature—is killing our efforts to return our education system to our local communities and districts. What’s your view on Common Core?” one Republican activist asked Paul.

Paul responded by noting that he supports dismantling the entire Department of Education, including Common Core.

“Good question. I’m an old-fashioned conservative. I grew up supporting Ronald Reagan when it was part of our platform to get rid of the entire Department of Education. I still think we should,” Paul said.

The crowd of about 100 GOP grassroots activists, including many who aren’t the most conservative in the world, rose to its feet in thunderous applause for Paul.

“We found a Common Core in the English section that talks about the demise—it’s an op-ed that someone just put in there that you’re supposed to read for English comprehension and it talks about the Cold War,” Paul continued as the crowd quieted down.

It says, well, the Cold War finally ended when Reagan apologized to Gorbachev, they became friends and then Gorbachev ended the Cold War. That’s not exactly right. The danger of having a national curriculum where you use the bully force of the federal government to force things down is that bias could enter into the curriculum. I think that is a bias there.

My fear is that if one person makes a mistake in Washington—even a mistake on explaining math, which they’ve had some problems with. My son and I—kids don’t watch any of the news, but my son forwarded me something on Common Core and he forwarded me the math problem and we look at the math problem—I tested out of calculus, I’m pretty good at math—we were struggling to understand what they wanted us to get out of a two digit addition problem.

So the thing is I’m not here to tell you I know the best way to do two digit addition problems, you should figure that out locally with your teachers, your principals, your school boards. I’m not against national tests. When I was a kid, you took the College Board Achievement test. You should want to know how Florida compares to Kentucky and how it compares to India and China and all these other countries.

Comparison statistics is a great idea. It just shouldn’t be mandated from Washington. I’m very much opposed to any of this being in Washington. I’m on the Education committee, and I will introduce an amendment to try to stop and defund Common Core.

The room rose in thunderous applause again. “What a guy!” one man, an army veteran who had asked a previous question, yelled in admiration.

In his interview with Breitbart News later, Paul said that the GOP nominee needs to be a conservative who can reach out to new potential voting blocs without compromising principle.

“What I find as I’m traveling around the country is that people don’t want us to dilute our message,” Paul said.

They don’t want our message to be Democrat-light. They don’t want our message to be wishy-woshy. They want our message to be principled. They want us to boldly be for what we are for. I think you can be all of that and still find new voters by taking aspects of your message that haven’t been listened to and haven’t been heard to new venues. That doesn’t mean we give up on what we stand for.

In the wake of a New York Times report that claims Sen. Rand Paul will announce in April he's running for president, another report breaks down the growing team of experts that will help him with his candidacy.

The Washington Post discusses the Kentucky Republican's inner circle of nine trusted confidants and advisers and what role they'll serve in his White House campaign.

Among Paul's advisers is Jesse Benton, who is married to Paul's niece. Benton worked briefly on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign last year but serves as one of Paul's closest advisers, reports the Post.

Mike Biundo, the Post writes, will spearhead Paul's all-important New Hampshire campaign ahead of the nation's first primary, scheduled for early next year. Biundo hails from the Granite State and worked on the 2012 presidential campaign of former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, along with Pat Buchanan's 1996 campaign.

Former Iowa state Rep. Steve Grubbs, who in the past has worked for Bob Dole and Steve Forbes, will lead the Paul campaign in Iowa.

Media consultant Rex Elsass first began working with Paul during the 2010 Senate race and will work on getting Paul's message out for 2016, the Post reports. Working with Elsass will be Sergio Gor, who serves as Paul's communications adviser, according to the Post.

Running the digital operation of Paul's campaign will be Vincent Harris, who Paul hired in November. The 26-year-old Texan previously did work for Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, two potential 2016 candidates on the Republican side. Harris has also been working to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win re-election.

NAPLES, Florida — Rep. Curt Clawson (R-FL), a conservative who won a special election last year and was then elected to a full term in the House of Representatives, tells Breitbart News at an event for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that America needs “more outsiders” like the senator in Washington, D.C., to fight back against special interests.

After an event where Paul spoke to and took questions from grassroots conservatives in Naples, Clawson said:

I think that we need more outsiders that bring real world business experience to our policy discussions. To give you an idea, the world has become a global competitive maelstrom. Too often we lose—Americans, American companies, and the American worker—because Washington doesn’t have a handle on that. So the more folks that have a handle on how economies work and how markets work, the better off we will be. And I think, secondly, a little bit in touch with the average folks—they want to keep their privacy, they want to keep their phone records. So that’s the second thing that an outsider I think brings that real folks outside the beltway are thinking.

Clawson, who took office last summer and has been in Washington for about half a year now, says the “biggest surprise” he’s seen in his time there is how powerful the special interests are here.

“I think that the biggest surprise would be the influence of money and special interests in the process. I think that limiting special interest involvement would get us to a more pure governance. I would say that would be my biggest surprise,” Clawson said. “By doing that, we would vote more towards what’s best for the overall group as opposed to particular constituents or groups that have skin in the game.”

Clawson, during his speech introducing Paul, said that he thinks Paul needs to become the next president of the United States.

“We need folks like this, who come from the outside, who have real life and business experience, understand how government clamps down on us—how it’s taking our liberties by squashing growth and muting the business cycle and killing jobs,” Clawson said in the remarks. “So I will always be loyal to the senator for his friendship and support when it was most needed, but most of all we need to find a way for this man to get into the White House to lead our country back to where it’s supposed to be, which is about liberty and about economic opportunity.”

When asked why he’s supportive of a Paul presidential candidacy, Clawson said he thinks the most important thing is getting a Republican into the White House—but Paul would be the right Republican. Clawson said:

I think the most important thing is that we have a Republican in the White House. What does that mean in a real sense? I hope we don’t kill each other in the primary and weaken whoever wins coming out the other end like we did last time. Having the White House is the most important goal. And then irrespective of who wins, I will do everything I can to support them in the next process, so that’s number one.

I’ve been partial to Rand Paul long before I ever dreamed of being involved in the political process because I think we need more folks in Washington who will make hard choices with respect to spending so that the next generation has a chance of getting a job, and that we understand the marketplace and that is a major driver here. Then the third thing is I respect privacy. Fourth, is it doesn’t get us into bad wars. I’m all for taking on these savages, and we need to take on ISIL, but I think it ought to be Muslim boots on the ground. I think we have a lot of policy areas where we agree...

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Paul shifted into discussing how different Washington is from the rest of America.

“When I was first elected, I proposed that we cut $500 billion in spending, and everybody in Washington said ‘Oh my goodness, this guy is crazy—he wants to really cut spending, he wants to really balance the budget,’” Paul said. “I got home back in Kentucky, and you know what they said? They said that’s a good start. They said now what are you going to do about the $18 trillion in debt? They’re not even concerned just with the deficit. In the real world, the people want us to balance the budget every year and actually do something about the $18 trillion debt.”

Paul noted the difference in culture is largely due to the liberal media on Capitol Hill and throughout D.C.

“The thing is is that the media, the liberal media, the people who call us flyover country America, know nothing about us,” Paul said. “They don’t represent us. They don’t have our values. And the thing is is that somehow Washington gets distracted into thinking this is what America is really about. Raise your hand if you’ve spent more than you bring in chronically for the last 10, 20 or 30 years.”

No hands went up in the entire audience.

“Nobody does that,” Paul said. “Everyone balances their family budget. They think we’re extremists. Somebody said ‘oh this is extreme.’ And I said, ‘to balance the budget, to only spend what comes in, is extreme?’”
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MONTGOMERY, Ala.—He didn’t outline his criminal justice reforms in so many words, avoiding mention of harsh mandatory minimum sentences or unfair drug laws. Instead, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky opened his speech at an Alabama GOP dinner at the Renaissance Hotel in Montgomery Friday night with a story about a local woman who was caught last year stealing eggs.

The story, he said, was about justice, in that the woman, a poor resident of Tarrant, a blighted area north of Birmingham dotted with industrial plants, couldn’t afford the eggs for her family. “As a Christian, I think about that our religion talks about redemption, and that maybe the law should give people second chances.”

"Maybe the law should give people second chances.”
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What drew shouts of approval, however, was the gold standard Republican rallying cry to cut taxes.

Near the end of his 25 minute speech, Paul noted the need to diversify the Republican constituency. “I tell people that when we win big, when we win the presidency again—it’s not Alabama’s fault, you guys are doing just fine—but there’s some other states we’re having trouble with: Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio. We win a lot of those states, but we can’t win the big cities, because we’re not getting enough African-American vote, we’re not getting enough Hispanic vote, we’re not getting enough working class vote. We’re not really, I think, showing enough concern, for those who aren’t sharing in the American dream,” he said.

To win more African-American votes, Rand and other potential Republican contenders need to do “a little more reaching out and explaining” of values, said Angelitta Carmichael, of Mobile, Alabama. She said values differ dramatically among Christians between Democrats and Republicans. In the coming months, Carmichael said she’s closely watching Paul and Jeb Bush.

Wayne Reynolds, a Vietnam Veteran, was cautious in his assessment of Paul as a contender for the Republican nomination. “I support him proceeding so we have a choice. He’s a good choice for us to consider,” Reynolds said after the speech. He said he’d like to see what the other candidates have to offer before settling on one nominee; he’s particularly impressed with Bush and Gov. Walker. But, he said, it’s a long way till 2016, “and my vote will go to whoever can best beat the Democrat.”

Other marks in the plus column for Paul? “He’s conservative, he’s for cost-maintenance, he’s for national defense,” Reynolds said, “but he’s not for putting our soldiers at risk needlessly.”

A number of Alabama Republican officials were among the 950 people in attendance, including Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, whose name, when it was read out, drew hoots and cheers. Moore is leading the charge against gay marriage in the state, where he ordered probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is mulling attaching his Audit the Fed legislation to a vote to raise the debt ceiling, Paul spokesman Brian Darling told The Hill.

Darling said that Paul, who is considering a 2016 presidential campaign, fully expects to get a vote on the measure in the Senate this year and that "there are numerous options to get a bill passed by itself or combined with other legislation."

"The strategy going forward will be to use regular order," Darling told The Hill. "If regular order does not work, Audit the Fed would be a great amendment to a debt-limit increase or any other piece of must pass legislation that hits the Senate floor."

The move is a clear signal of how serious Paul is about getting a vote on the legislation that has garnered political blowback from top Fed officials. The proposal allows for increased congressional oversight at the central bank.

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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio program Thursday to respond to what Beck called a “hit piece” in Politico criticizing the senator’s push to audit the Federal Reserve.

“They bring up a lot of points that somebody like me looks at and says, ‘Well, gee, that kind of makes sense. What’s Rand talking about?’ So let’s go over these point by point,” Beck told the senator. “The article says the [Federal Reserve's] finances are already subject to an audit by the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, the Federal Inspector General and outside audit firms.”

Paul suggested Beck watch a “really great exchange” where a congressman asked the Federal Reserve auditor during a committee hearing what was purchased with around $2 trillion. The auditor said they were “not allowed” to audit Federal Reserve bank activities.

“I don’t think that’s a real audit,” Paul said. “We have a bunch of fake audits, and the fake audits don’t reveal any of the information we want to know. We want to know, who are they buying the stuff from? What are they paying for it? Are they paying a fair market rate, or because it’s someone’s brother-in-law, are they actually paying more for something than it’s actually worth?”

“We don’t know any of that so we don’t really have an audit,” Paul continued. “It’s appalling that something Congress created is such an enormous creature, a creature that creates its own money is now lobbying government. They should be forbidden from lobbying government and forbidden from trying to influence legislation. I think it’s appalling that they’re trying to stop any oversight of the Federal Reserve.”

Beck countered that in the Politico article it reads: “Those interested in what’s on the Fed’s balance sheet can find out, down to the individual bond, on the website of the New York Federal Reserve.”

“I think that that’s true and untrue at the same time,” Paul responded. “There are lists of what their assets are, but they aren’t individualized. You can’t tell who they bought them from or whether they were bought at fair market price or whether they were bought at a haircut and whether or not there were any conflicts of interests in the buying and selling.”

The senator said it is “very concerning” how much the Federal Reserve will not disclose, and his push to audit the institution now has overwhelming bipartisan support.

“Now the Fed has got an all-out onslaught and push against this,” Paul said. “And it should worry people that an individual bank that has the monopoly privilege granted to it by Congress is able to print up money to lobby against legislation that would cause more oversight. That should worry all of us.”