Rand Paul Wows NH GOP Crowd

The New Hampshire Republican Party held a sold-out dinner on May 20 to raise thousands of dollars for party coffers and bringing the RNC chairman and a potential 2016 presidential candidate to Concord for the occasion.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, gave rousing speeches, moving from poignant, thoughtful strategy sharing to passion filled indictments of the Obama presidency that they suggested was violating the Constitution and harming the future of the country.

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Priebus said the state was full of “great people who care about this party” and explained how he planned on rebuilding the GOP’s brand through a permanent political organization that is interacting with Americans at every level and not just during campaign season. He noted that the entire Republican operation in 2011 had 80 employees while the president had “hundreds” in Florida alone.

Priebus offered a litany of complaints against the current president who “loves the sound of his own voice” while having “a hatred for dissent.” He joked that the president thought the Bill of Rights was a suggestion and not rights or “a set of non-negotiable limits on the federal government.” Priebus said, in the wake of the Justice Department seizing the phone records of the Associated Press, he had repeatedly called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign. If President Obama doesn’t call on Holder to leave, it shows that his administration thinks its above the Constitution, he said, and didn’t respect the role of the free press.

Paul hit the stage to a rousing, loud standing ovation, and joked, at first, about building a fence to keep Massachusetts residents out of the Granite State, as well as his knack of talking a lot, in the wake of his drone filibuster.

But then, Paul turned serious, saying that he was shocked that the Senate approved provisions that allowed Americans to be indefinitely detain, without a trial or lawyer. He said such provisions were against the intentions of the Founders who wanted to keep power from the government.

Paul also commented on two recent controversies in Washington – the death of an ambassador and others in a terrorist attack in Benghazi and the IRS investigating and holding up the approval of political nonprofits. He said that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have been fired if he were president for not knowing what was going on in Benghazi, calling it “a dereliction of duty,” for not properly preparing the embassy for a potential attack.

“Benghazi is not Paris,” he said. “It should have been treated like Baghdad.”

Paul said accusations by Democrats that Republicans had defunded the State Department was not true. He said requests for a DC 3 on standby to assist the embassy was rejected. Instead, he alleged, the state department was focusing spending millions on “green cars in Vienna.”

Paul called the actions by the IRS – or any government agency targeting citizens or political opponents – as un-American and called for an independent commission to investigate the matter. Paul added that anyone involved should be fired at the very least and potentially put in jail.

Paul also lectured Republicans saying they need to expand the party’s membership by attracting and accepting people of different races, ethnicities, cultures, and facial hair. Only until the party looks like America will it win again, he said.