Not Really Anti-Spending At All

Daniel Larison writes in The American Conservative:

A large part of the reason why Grayson’s attacks [on Rand Paul] failed was that fiscal and economic issues loomed large in this race, which made Grayson’s obsession with Paul’s other views seem not only irrelevant but another sign that he, as the establishment’s preferred candidate, was wildly out of touch with what mattered to the electorate right now.

The national Republican leadership and quite a few conservative pundits and bloggers have convinced themselves that excessive spending and government expansion were the things that drove the public away from the GOP, and this is not at all true. Nonetheless, when a primary candidate appeared who made an argument for strong fiscal conservatism and opposition to bailouts, much of the party establishment worked to try to defeat him. If the spending argument were correct, Paul would be an ideal candidate for the fall and the party leadership ought to have rallied around him. In refusing to do so and in actively working to defeat Paul, Grayson’s backers have made clear that they don’t actually put much stock in their own anti-spending rhetoric, and they have reminded everyone that their aggressive, ruinous views on national security take precedence over everything else.