“Rand Paul Purchases a Path Around an Inconvenient Kentucky Law”

The Atlantic:

Over the weekend, the Kentucky senator said he gave $250,000 to his state’s Republican Party for the explicit purpose of funding its presidential caucus in March. He promised to pony up another $200,000 in the fall, enough to cover the entire cost of the nominating event. Put another way: Paul is paying the party to hold an election in which he is running.

He’s doing it neither to ensure a victory nor out of the simple goodness of his heart. No, Paul is making a rather blatant end-run around state law, and he’s compensating the Kentucky GOP for going along with him. The law forbids someone from appearing on the same ballot as a candidate for two different offices, and Paul, who is up for reelection next year, doesn’t want to give up his Senate seat to make his rather long-shot bid for the presidency.

Democrats in the Bluegrass Grass state blocked his allies’ attempt to repeal the law, so Paul has been trying to persuade the Republican Party to ditch its presidential primary in May in favor of a caucus in March. That way, the primaries for president and Senate won’t be on the same day, and Paul won’t have to appear twice on the same ballot.

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