Rand Paul Runs on NSA Fight, As Privacy Advocates Wonder What He Actually Won

Audiences and experts disagree about what the Republican presidential candidate has been able to do.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) greets guests gathered for the Republican Party of Iowa's Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center on May 16, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

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By David Weigel

June 9, 2015 at 4:44 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Over the past weekend, as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul stumped through New Hampshire, the aura of the Patriot Act fight was still in full glow. Paul gave six public speeches (in addition to a closed-door event at Murphy's, a Manchester tavern owned by a state representative), all of them beginning with a rundown of his fight in Washington.

"Some in Washington say that you have to trade your liberty for security," Paul told an overflowing crowd at the opening of his Manchester office. "So we had a grand debate, 10 and a half hours on one day. We came back for a few hours. Now, some in the Washington machine didn't want to be there. They wanted to be on vacation. But we caused them to give a little bit of vacation up to have a very important debate."