Conservatives: Rand Paul 'jumped the shark,' missed his chance

As the Rand Paul presidential campaign launches its rollout today in the Republican senator's home state of Kentucky, it's important to note that just last week key conservatives were writing off Paul because of his isolationist tendencies on foreign affairs and defense issues.
The post-Arab Spring trauma throughout the Middle East has dramatically shifted the sands under the feet of the GOP presidential contenders.

Politico is reporting that a hawkish foreign policy group is planning to rough up Paul in a $1 million ad campaign that will tie the senator to President Obama's foreign policy moves and call the candidate "reckless" and "dangerous."
Timed to coincide with this week's campaign launch, the nonprofit Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, will air the TV ad in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — the four states with the earliest presidential primaries and caucuses — as well as nationally on the Fox News Channel.
Over at The Hill, they reported last week that the Republican base voters, even the tea party fiscal conservatives, are now looking for a nominee with hawkish tendencies in foreign policy.
The nuclear showdown with Iran and the concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin flexing his muscles certainly adds to the emphasis on events overseas.
The tipping point in the polls, according to several sources quoted by The Hill, was the series of beheadings by ISIS last year.

Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the “post-Iraq war rise of isolationist sentiment on the left and the right peaked” during the early years of the Obama administration.
While she said isolationism remains “quite strong” on the left, “on the right, the libertarian isolationist wing has jumped the shark.”
“When Rand Paul is talking aid to Israel and fighting ISIS, he’s lost the narrative,” she said.

Here's more from The Hill:
"Under attack from pro-defense Republicans and neoconservatives who favor interventionist foreign policies, Paul last year introduced legislation to halt U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority until it renounces violence against Israel.
Sentiments have shifted even among conservative Tea Party voters, a crucial electoral bloc for Paul, who must compete with Sen. Ted Cruz for its support.
“'Poor Rand Paul, he’s one cycle off. Had he been able to run in 2012 he would have had a huge following',” said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation.
“'There is a lot more sentiment even among fiscal hawks for more defense spending because we’ve realized just how badly Obama has gutted the military,'” he added.

The idea that Obama "gutted" the Pentagon budget would have been laughable to the Rand Paul of two or three years ago. Now, the freshman senator is proposing a significant increase in defense spending.
So, who are the winners in the shakeup created by this GOP change of heart?
Experts say Cruz  and fellow freshman Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, though revelations last week that Cruz has missed nearly every meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which he is a member, since entering the Senate will certainly tarnish his ability to woo the neocons.
The most hawkish candidate in the race may turn out to be Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose rumblings about running were barely taken seriously until late last month.

How significant are the evolving views within the GOP? Polls are finding that terrorism and national security are at or near the top of the list of concerns of likely Republican primary voters.
What's more, a March NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 79 percent of Republican primary voters favor a candidate who supports sending combat troops to Iraq to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). And 87 percent of very conservative GOP primary voters favor deploying ground troops against Islamic militants.