IOWA CITY, Iowa — GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) expects former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to face a difficult path to her own party’s nomination, with Democratic voices like former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, former Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) and others potentially running for the Democratic nomination against her.
“I think she [Clinton] has had a rough month,” Paul said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News here after he spoke at the University of Iowa.
If anybody has had a rough rollout, she’s had a rough pre-rollout. The last month has been really hard on her because—it’s really been the last six months to a year—because for the last year we’ve been trying to let people know that her lack of defense of the Benghazi consulate really should preclude her from even being considered.
But now there’s a lot of the questions of the Clinton Foundation and the questions about the email. So I think she has an increasingly difficult path to the nomination on her side, and I think it will be much more competitive than people thought six months ago. And I also think that her numbers—you’re seeing not only in Iowa, but Colorado and Pennsylvania where we’re leading her in three different states now.
In addition, Paul echoed what O’Malley said a few weeks ago, that the presidency is not a “crown” to be passed between two different families: The Clinton family and the Bush family.
“Well that’s one thing the voters will decide, but you do hear that [the anti-establishment mentality O’Malley talked about] cropping up and I think that will be a decision that voters will make,” Paul said.
I think that probably the most important thing is finding a [Republican] candidate who will reach out to new constituencies because we have 18 states that we haven’t won in 31 years. Someone has to figure out how Republicans can attract more people. I think I’m the only Republican who has been to Detroit who’s been saying I have a plan to help bail out Detroit by lowering their taxes.
Clinton is expected to announce her presidential campaign this weekend, ahead of the expected Monday launch of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Clinton has high name ID after being First Lady, a Senator, a presidential candidate and Secretary of State. So she’s polling better than all Republicans—except for Paul—nationwide and in most major states, though she is slipping somewhat in recent polls. Republicans would like to see s brutal a Democratic primary, which the Republican primary is shaping up to be.
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