Rand Paul flip-flops on key campaign promise

Senator-elect Rand Paul has flip-flopped on one of his key campaign promises. Maybe there is actually something in the Potomac River that effects every single person elected to Washington. My guess is that the outgoing senator, Russ Feingold, was one of the few to get vaccinated from whatever this epidemic that only affects elected officials.

Think Progress:

One Tea Party hero, Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), jumped on the anti-earmark bandwagon early, making “a ban on wasteful earmark spending in Washington D.C. one of the key points of his campaign” in March. Lambasting lawmakers who opt for “photo-ops with oversized fake cardboard checks,” Paul vowed to “dismantle the culture of professional politicians” even if he “ruffled a lot of establishment feathers” while doing it.

Look at an excerpt of his profile in the Wall Street Journal:

Father and son, age 47, have different styles. Asked what he wanted to do in Washington in a Wednesday morning television interview, the senator-elect said that his kids were hoping to meet the Obama girls. He has made other concessions to the mainstream. He now avoids his dad’s talk of shuttering the Federal Reserve and abolishing the income tax. In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad “symbol” of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. “I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he says.

So you’re not a crazy libertarian? “Not that crazy,” he cracks.

Remember this is the same guy that said he would not take ANY MONEY from Republican senators that voted for the bailouts only to say after the primary that that was a campaign promise that applied to the primary campaign.

Rand Paul is not a politician that sticks to his guts. The tea party movement that backed him will soon realize that they are the ones that will be left to hang out and dry.