January 17, 2012--Kim Jong-rand

While reading about how the North Koreans will soon be moving their recently-deceased supreme leader Kim Jong-il into the same mausoleum that features his predecessor-father, Kim Il-sung, on permanent display, and how the North Koreans have reached out to the caretakers of Lenin's body (on permanent display in Moscow) to make sure they have the embalming and preserving just right, just as I was thinking about whether or not there is room for Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il's son and Kim Il-sung's grandson, while worrying about this and trying to keep all the Kim names straight, I somehow found myself thinking about Ron and Rand Paul.

It was during last night's GOP debate less than a week before South Carolina's primary that the Kims or ils also came to mind.

While the pundits were weighing whether or not a clear non-Romney was finally emerging--did Rick Santorum seem credible enough especially now that the assembled Christian right endorsed him; did Gingrich manage to sufficiently wiggle out the shadows of his compromised political and personal past to propel him to first-runner-up status--while the Fox folks were struggling to figure out who to unequivocally get behind (I was taking perverse glee watching them do their own wiggling--how good is it when bottom-feeders such as Karl Rove and Dick Morris lose their smug sense of surety), all the while I couldn't take my eyes off Ron Paul.

At nearly 100 (I just made that up) there he was still on his tired feet after what seemed like an endless two hours. If they had pulled the plug--on the debate I mean, not old Ron--after the first half hour we'd be getting ready for President Rick or President Newt. They had by then so chewed up Mitt as if he was a delicious appetizer, that they had him stammering his way through a tortured justification of his "vulture capitalist" years at Bain Capital. I was almost feeling sorry for him but stopped myself when i remembered that if all else fails he still has his quarter billion to fall back on. More than enough to keep him and his family of thousands supplied forever with hair gel and teeth whitener.

What was old Ron up to, I asked myself. He hardly makes sense any more (being ancient will do that to you) and wasn't it cruel for the questioners to keep pressing him about what he really meant it when he said it was uncontitutional for the United States to enter a "sovereign nation," Pakistan, to "take out" Osama bin Laden.

I tried hard to listen to his uncomfortable rational and to understand his constitutional problem; and I did enjoy watching the packed Republican house rise to its collective feet to give Newt a standing-O when he fed them the red meat they so crave--quoting Andrew Jackson (Newt is an historian after all) about the only way to deal with enemies is to "kill them"--the thrill of killing bad guys will do that to real Americans, especially on MLK Day--but try as I did, I continued not to be able to figure out Ron Paul's appeal to young people (I know they like his anti-war, isolationist stance and he can be adorable--just like gramps) much less being attractive to anyone with a genuine understanding of the Constitution or interested in anything later than 18th century economics.

Then it all became clear to me--including why Mitt Romney does not have to worry about Ron Paul running as a third party candidate and will not have to promise to make him Treasury Secretary or head of the Fed to get him not to do so.

Like the Kims, the Rands are thinking about inter-generational succession and, eventually, mausoleums. The only question will be where to locate theirs--in Ron's Texas or Rand's Kentucky?

If Ron goes fully off the reservation that will leave young Rand with no role to play in the Republican Party; and with no role there, who will put him on TV? Four years from now when Chris Christie and Nikki Haley and Marco Rubio are fighting with each other for the 2016 nomination, Rand will be relegated to the sidelines, curled up with his battered copy of Atlas Shrugged.

True, we do have the Bushes (Jeb hovering out there with 2016 on his mind), and we did have the Kennedy Camelot years, but they are not imperial minded--no Lenin-like embalming in their future--and they're not nearly as much fun as the Pauls. In fact, the Bushes are no fun at all. And to get us through the rest of this century we do need as much fun as possible.

So, Ron, don't turn into Ralph Nader; and, please Rand, hang in there. Four years from now is just around the corner and the campaign for 2016 begins in just a few months.