The Wilderness

by McKay Coppins

  Kelley knew that between her husband’s college high jinks and her son’s rocky teenage years, a presidential campaign was likely to serve up a smorgasbord of family humiliations, and she told Rand she couldn’t sign off until she had a clear idea of what exactly might come up. To satisfy this demand, Rand had his political action committee hire researchers to dig into his own background and his family, and prepare an exhaustive menu of past sins that political opponents might seize on.

  In the meantime, Rand’s team tried its best to keep Kelley away from the media, reasoning that exposing her to the unpleasant pestering of reporters might serve to exacerbate her wariness of a campaign. When I requested an interview with her in October 2014, I was first told that she didn’t talk to journalists very often. When I pressed, an aide confessed that they were worried my meeting with her might interfere with Rand’s intramarital lobbying efforts. In the end, they relented and allowed me a brief interview with the couple at the senator’s Washington office.

  Kelley was warm and thoughtful throughout our conversation, showcasing an impressive savvy about politics and a disarming deftness in handling my questions. As our allotted time neared its end, I asked Kelley what hesitations she had about her husband running for president.

  Before she could respond, Rand lowered his voice slightly and instructed his wife, “Don’t answer. Just tell him you don’t have any.”

  I thought he might have been joking—but if he was, Kelley’s face didn’t register any amusement.

  “I think you can probably guess,” she told me. “It’s the same hesitations anyone would have. I think that people seem to have this idea that of course we know what we’re doing. And I don’t think they realize how complicated it really is.”

  She said they needed to have more conversations with immediate and extended family members, and make sure everyone was clear-eyed about how the election process would disrupt their lives.

  “You know, politics is a lot different than it was even twenty years ago,” she said. “Social media—that’s just part of it now. Everyone’s got a camera and a recording device on their cell phone, and so you feel like you’re constantly sort of being surveilled, I guess… And then bloggers can say just about anything, and you have to psychologically be prepared for that.”

  At this point Rand chimed in, offering validation for his wife’s concerns about the press.

  “It used to be there were editors or people who said, ‘You really shouldn’t take a picture of him eating dinner with food coming out of his mouth, or having a drink of wine,’” the senator said. “You just didn’t do that. They gave a little bit of space to people. But now, not only is there no space, but you might report it and it might be accurate, and then your editor might place a title on it that makes it a little less accurate, then the next guy places a title on it that makes it less accurate, and within twenty-four hours—or, really, within two hours—people are saying, ‘He’s eating live babies!’”

  This was a commonly aired grievance among the rich and famous, and it had the distinction of being both eminently reasonable and hopelessly unrelatable to the vast majority of Americans, for whom celebrity gossip is a harmless pastime and the online media’s hyperbolic aggregation practices are not a day-to-day concern. But it quickly became apparent that Rand was not speaking just then for my benefit, or for the benefit of voters. His audience consisted of one person, and she was sitting next to him.

  After completing his media critique, Rand pivoted. “But I think there still is some—” He paused, and then decided to enlist my help in his lobbying efforts. “From your point of view—we’ll turn it around—do you think there still is a filter [in the media]?”

  I got the impression that whatever answer I gave would become currency in the ongoing pros-and-cons list the Pauls were compiling as they moved toward decision time, so I tried to stay neutral. I said that certain fringe corners of the Web could be unpredictable—my mind instantly flashing back to the Trump-led attack of the fever swamps earlier that year—and that there was no telling how low partisan vigilantes might stoop in the heat of a presidential campaign. But I also argued that, for the most part, mainstream media outlets still seemed to adhere to a set of good-taste standards—including, for example, an agreement that candidates’ kids should be off-limits.

  “And I think there still is some of that,” Rand said, rushing to agree with the second part of my analysis. “I keep trying to reassure Kelley that there aren’t that many stories out there about kids.”

  I glanced at Kelley. She didn’t look reassured.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Midterms

  On November 4, 2014, Republicans achieved a sweeping victory in the midterm elections that exceeded even the highest hopes of the most blinkered partisan prognosticators. They reclaimed control of the Senate with an astonishing gain of nine seats. They expanded their control of the House to the largest majority in nearly a century. They triumphed in gubernatorial races and seized state legislatures across the country. Contests that were supposed to be won by Democrats broke late in their favor; races that were supposed to be close turned into GOP blowouts. In one of the party’s most decisive electoral statements in decades, Republicans managed to turn an election that had once looked doomed into a spectacular national triumph.

  And yet the confetti hadn’t even finished falling at the victory parties before Republicans were fighting about it. Rather than provide clarity in the battle over the party’s future, the GOP’s 2014 coup incited a stampede of stakeholders from every nook and niche of conservatism looking to steal credit and spin the outcome as validation for whatever cause or tribe they represented. After all, the real battlefield where the struggle for the party’s soul would be won—the 2016 presidential primaries—still loomed ahead, and tonight’s election would frame that fight for the next two years.

  To the establishmentarians, it was obvious that Republicans had won big by stanching the tide of the Tea Party insurgency and elevating reasonable, reality-based nominees. The GOP’s 2014 gains were brought about by “a greater attention to the quality and viability” of the party’s candidates, argued one of Karl Rove’s top lieutenants in Politico. The Republicans may have finally “detoxified themselves” from the radioactive right wing, mused center-right New York Times columnist David Brooks. The path forward was “to demonstrate to American voters that our party can effectively govern,” pronounced Jeb Bush.

  At the same time, the insurgents and ideologues of the conservative movement were pushing an entirely different takeaway in the election’s wake. Ted Cruz claimed that his party’s 2014 triumph could be directly traced back to the 2013 government shutdown, because it had cast a national spotlight on the failures of Obamacare and rallied conservatives to the polls. It was now “incumbent on [Republicans] to honor our promises and do everything humanly possible to stop Obamacare,” Cruz said—including another shutdown if necessary. Donald Trump, meanwhile, used the occasion to suggest that the new Republican Congress should get to work impeaching President Obama. “It would be an absolute embarrassment” for the president, Trump barked on Fox News. “It would go down on his record permanently!” And Ann Coulter urged conservatives to “stay paranoid” even as Republicans took control of Congress, because the party’s leadership still couldn’t be trusted.

  Even in victory, the fractured GOP couldn’t coalesce. Each faction remained planted firmly in its own distinct reality—blaming failures on the version of the party it most disliked, attributing successes to the leaders it thought should be in charge, and filtering every development through its own custom-made lens.

  There were, however, two things that everyone in the party seemed to agree on when it came to 2014. The first was that the American people had rendered a withering judgment of the president by rejecting his party so decisively. The second was that Republicans were no closer to discovering their winning 2016 coalition than they had been on the night of Mitt Romney’s defeat. The elec
torate that turned out for midterm elections was almost always whiter, older, richer, and more conservative than the voters who participated in presidential races. To triumph in the upcoming national election, Republicans would need a standard-bearer who was capable of unifying the party’s warring tribes and coaxing millions of additional voters into the fold.

  After two years of fierce ideological clashes, backstage power plays, and nonstop jockeying for position, there were nearly twenty contenders vying for the job—and zero consensus about the party’s path to victory.

  Of all the Oval Office strivers staking out their positions on election night, none was caught straddling the intraparty divide quite so visibly as Rand Paul. It was just after 10 p.m. when he and his entourage cut through a crowded hotel ballroom in Louisville—power walking past the national press in attendance—on their way to the stage. The U.S. Senate race in Kentucky had just been called for Mitch McConnell, and with Republicans taking control of the Senate, it was all but certain that he would be the next majority leader.

  Rand had spent the past week with his arm draped around the senior senator on the campaign trail—and the past year vouching for him with grassroots activists—and now he was being rewarded for his steadfastness with the chance to introduce McConnell on national television. Rand’s hope was that the high-profile show of solidarity with a man who was about to become the most powerful Republican in Washington would signal to party elites and high-dollar donors that he had matured—from libertarian mischief-maker (and onetime McConnell nemesis) to serious-minded statesman and 2016 prospect.

  Standing at the podium, Rand spoke in a theatrically grand cadence that he reserved for his biggest speeches. “It will be two long years until we get to replace this president,” he bellowed. He promised that the new Republican Senate would spend the next two years sending Obama “bill after bill until he wearies of it.” And if the president refused to sign them, “then in 2016 the people will rise up and reclaim our heritage, and elect a lover of liberty who will restore the values of our Founding Fathers!”

  McConnell came onstage and the two men clasped hands and hoisted their arms in the air in the time-honored pose of two politicians projecting unity, confidence, and imminent victory.

  Yet even as the ballroom erupted in clamorous applause and the cameras captured the triumphant scene, there was no escaping the reality of Rand’s precarious political position. While he was on TV celebrating the Republicans’ big night, his dad (or whichever libertarian hanger-on had taken control of his Twitter account) was launching a caustic online lament of the election’s outcome and its consequences.

  “Looks like big Republican win tonight. Power shift? Yes. Philosophy shift? No!” read one of the @RonPaul tweets.

  “Republican control of the Senate = expanded neocon wars in Syria and Iraq,” read another.

  Rand’s advisers were livid about the tweets, but they knew there was little they could do. Whether or not the senator ultimately succeeded in bridging the rifts that ravaged the GOP, it seemed clearer now than ever that the House of Paul would remain divided as long as he was trying.

  Eight days later, more than fifty of Rand’s aides and advisers gathered for a two-day closed-door summit at the Liaison hotel, a trendy boutique outfit near Capitol Hill defined by modernist statement furniture and tranquil electronic music eternally fluttering through the lobby. The agenda for the conference was multifaceted, but its purpose was clear: to ensure that Rand hit the ground running the second he made his presidential bid official in a few months.

  Every contingent of his 2016 shadow campaign was represented at the gathering: the establishment emissaries, the evangelical ambassadors, the libertarian stalwarts, the minority-outreach experts, and a collection of fund-raisers, lobbyists, and political consultants who had managed to hitch their wagons to the senator’s star over the past two years.

  There was one notable absence, however: Trygve Olson. As one of the few advisers who had been with Rand since before he was elected to the Senate, Olson had been considered a shoo-in for one of the top spots in his presidential campaign. But when Doug Stafford called to invite him to the Liaison hotel summit, Olson politely declined. He sent an email to Rand apologetically explaining that his family life at the moment wouldn’t allow for the long hours and incessant travel of a presidential campaign.

  But that was only half the truth. In reality, Olson had become sadly convinced after watching Rand in action over the past two years that he had no chance of capturing his party’s nomination. Back in 2013, the principled, gate-crashing libertarian had seemed perfectly positioned for what looked like a sea change in the politics of national security and foreign policy. But then the terrifying rise of ISIS in the summer of 2014 had jolted Republicans back into their neoconservative, combat-ready default mode, and all at once Rand’s anti-interventionist vision seemed hopelessly out of step with his party.

  Olson still believed in that vision, but in order to make it sing in a national Republican primary—especially given the adverse ideological conditions posed by 2016—Rand would need a much sharper, savvier campaign team than the one he had assembled. Stafford, Olson believed, had only held on to his status as the senator’s right hand by validating all of his worst reflexes, and then sidelining any operative who came along proposing a different way of doing things. Olson feared that if he signed on to Rand’s campaign, he would have to travel with the candidate nonstop in order to counteract Stafford’s unhelpful coddling and intercept his bad ideas. And frankly, it just didn’t seem worth missing a year’s worth of walks to school with his young daughters to help run a quixotic campaign of agitation.

  Reaching these conclusions wasn’t easy for Olson. For a while, he had truly believed that Rand was on the brink of ushering in a new era for the Republican Party. But watching him squander that opportunity with a series of self-inflicted wounds and unforced errors had made Olson question whether Rand was temperamentally suited for the presidency. As he later explained to a colleague, “If you can’t do that kind of basic political blocking and tackling, how are you going to sit across the table from Vladimir Putin?”

  While Rand spent the week after the midterms plotting his presidential campaign at the Liaison, Paul Ryan was in his office on the other side of the Hill, preparing to ascend to one of the most powerful perches in Congress: chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Though little known outside the cloistered halls of Capitol Hill, the committee had jurisdiction over all tax legislation and an array of massive federal programs, from social security to welfare to Medicare to unemployment benefits. Whoever wielded the Ways and Means gavel had power over trillions of dollars in the federal budget—and bottomless access to campaign cash from donors angling for influence.

  Ryan had eyed the chair ever since he was slinging quesadillas to congressmen as a twenty-three-year-old waiter and wannabe wonk at Capitol Hill’s favorite Tex-Mex spot—but now that he finally had it, he found himself eyeing the exits. A relatively young man, in his prime and at the pinnacle of power in Congress, Ryan had endless options before him—but he was openly musing about his imminent retirement, and even setting timelines for himself in public. When a reporter went to Wisconsin to profile him, Ryan said emphatically, “I’m not going to be in Congress ten years from now.”

  For all his years in Washington, Ryan had never planned to be a lifer, and lately he’d felt the tug of private life. He had young kids at home. The weekly commutes to and from Wisconsin were killing him. And he was eager to get back to the normal Janesville lifestyle his family had been a part of for generations.

  But his fading infatuation with Washington also had a lot to do with his recent immersion into the world of the poor. After eighteen months of tutelage from Bob Woodson and his network of grassroots poverty warriors, Ryan had introduced a draft of policy proposals in July designed to confront some of the issues he had witnessed firsthand. The seventy-two-page plan sketched a means of taking the federal money th
at funded the old welfare programs, which had been foundational to America’s social safety net for decades, and channeling it toward more flexible grants that would allow individual states to experiment with their own tailor-made initiatives to help welfare recipients get back into the workforce. He proposed expanding the earned income tax credit for childless adults; reviewing and potentially eradicating regulations that hurt disadvantaged workers, like occupational licensing requirements; and looking for ways to reduce incarceration.

  Ryan’s proposals were greeted more warmly than he expected, with many ideological foes and longtime skeptics of his motives offering at least qualified praise. “Democrats should welcome Paul Ryan’s poverty plan,” wrote the left-leaning policy blogger Ezra Klein, who applauded him for “refocusing himself and, perhaps, the Republican Party.” Danny Vinik, a writer for the venerable liberal magazine the New Republic, ventured that Ryan’s tax credit proposal might be “his best idea ever.” Of course, the familiar cast of ax-grinding critics in the commentariat served up their usual mockery and derision, but overall, Ryan was heartened by the reception.

  Any sense of victory he felt was to be fleeting. Ryan had been up-front about the fact that this was only meant to be the start of the process—he and his aides had drafted proposals, not actual legislation—and it was discouragingly obvious that it would take a herculean effort to actually maneuver any of these ideas through the congressional obstacle course and turn them into law. While well-heeled partisans and professional obstructionists hurled demagogic attacks at one another in committee meetings and on cable TV, how many teenagers would unnecessarily rot in prison? How many addicts would see their employment prospects crumble and their illnesses left untreated? How many struggling moms would be left unable to feed their families, thanks to strict licensing laws that banned them from so much as braiding hair without government approval? Ryan would be the first to admit that he had not always played the most constructive role in the petty, partisan, plodding grind of lawmaking that had suffocated so many good policy ideas in Washington’s history—but coming to terms with that only made him more disenchanted with the prospect of staying in Congress.