8:30 a.m. on a school day? Come <em>on</em>, Rand. There better be bloody marys.
8:30 a.m. on a school day? Come on, Rand. There better be Bloody Marys. Andrew Cline / Shutterstock.com

The junior senator from Kentucky is holding a rally at Town Hall next week, presumably to announce his surprise at the fact that he isn't the craziest Republican running for president.

Sure, he's recently been seen chainsawing the tax code in half, coming out against birthright citizenship and funding for Planned Parenthood. And sure, his flat tax proposal is as short-sighted as any flat tax proposal. And, yeah, if you said that he wanted to cut the departments of education, housing, energy, and commerce, you'd be right. And, I know it's a small thing, but there's also the layout of his campaign e-mails, which seem designed to evoke the Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd: READ THIS OBAMA IS TRASH LIKE I SAID, LOVE AUNT DEBORAH chain mails that clog your inbox right after Thanksgiving:

Ah yes--weird yellow highlighting, blue links, ironic uses of rhetorical questions. A fine specimen indeed. Aunt Deborah would be proud.
Ah yes—weird yellow highlighting, blue links, ironic uses of rhetorical questions. A fine specimen, indeed. Aunt Deborah would be proud. Screenshot

Is there anything about that e-mail that could make Rand Paul seem more like a family member your therapist has told you to avoid at all costs?

Oh yes, yes there is. Nice sign-off, person who wants to be president.
Oh yes, yes there is. Nice sign-off, person who wants to be president. Screenshot

But, like many libertarians, Paul is solid on issues related to government surveillance and weed, and he's kinda good on reforming the criminal justice system.

In any case, your faithful and humble servant will be there, drinking a lot of coffee, rubbing elbows with elderly Christians, and trying to ask him whether he's prepared to abandon his Senate seat to pursue the oval office. Paul's currently polling at about 4 percent nationally, which is about half of where he was in June.