Stop Rand Paul Campaign Supported By Former Gingrich Backer

Rand Paul could soon find his campaign for president targeted by an effort to derail his drive for the GOP nomination, Salon magazine has reported. Sheldon Adelson, who supported Newt Gingrich for president in 2012, vows to fund a campaign to prevent libertarian-leaning Republican Senator Rand Paul from getting the GOP nomination for president in 2016. With the rise in reports about the activities of terrorists like ISIS, Republicans favoring a stronger anti-terrorism policy are opposing the more non-interventionist foreign policy views of Rand Paul.

“The guy who’s now got the biggest challenge because of this is Rand Paul,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the New York Times, speaking of the GOP’s increased attention to foreign policy. “The Rand Paul worldview, which I suspect will change, is just incompatible with reality.”

While Adelson is opposing Rand Paul, other potential 2016 rivals have already sought out the support of the casino magnate from Las Vegas. Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and John Kasich have all sought out Adelson’s support. After having backed the Gingrich campaign with $15 million in 2012, such funding for a stop Rand Paul movement could be a serious blow to Rand Paul’s campaign for president.

Adelson, reportedly the tenth wealthiest man in the world, will seek to stop Rand Paul by supporting and bankrolling the campaigns of 2016 GOP candidates that support a more hawkish foreign policy, AntiWar reports. It seems clear Adelson’s goal is to prevent Rand Paul from becoming the GOP nominee in 2016.

AntiWar also reported about Adelson, “The billionaire is known for being extremely hawkish, and called on the Obama Administration to fire some nuclear weapons willy-nilly into the desert in 2013 to try to intimidate Iran, and to tell them ‘the next one is in the middle of Tehran.’ ”

In a more ironic moment of this campaign cycle, Rand Paul made an unusual charge against Marco Rubio, calling the Florida senator an “isolationist,” the Inquisitr reported December of last year.

“Rand Paul (R-KY) made the unusual charge of calling Marco Rubio (R-FL) an ‘isolationist’ for opposing President Obama’s recent policies that opened trade and relations with communist Cuba, the Sun Heraldreported. The Libertarian leaning Paul, who is often viewed as isolationist by some, made the unusual charge against fellow likely GOP presidential candidate Rubio, a Cuban-American who opposes opening trade and relations with communist Cuba,” the Inquisitr reported.

FiveThirtyEight editor Nate Silver has recently predicted that Scott Walker and Jeb Bush will be the likely front-runners for the GOP nomination in 2016. If that is the case, Adelson might be supporting Walker in his effort to stop Rand Paul.

[Images of Sheldon Adelson and Rand Paul from Salon.com]