Elections

Rand Paul Wins Twitter with Festivus Rant

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Rand Paul started to bid farewell to 2015 with a special edition of his “Waste Report,” a regular roundup of government spending that he considers wasteful. Paul releases these reports as part of his unending effort to cut the federal deficit, but this edition commemorated the, objectively speaking, most underrated holiday in the United States: Festivus.

If you don’t know what Festivus is you should, aside from being ashamed of yourself, watch this YouTube clip for some background. Festivus is a fictional holiday created by the TV show “Seinfeld” and its celebration involves multiple different parts. The most notable part is the “airing of the grievances,” in which people share the problems they have with, well, everyone and everything.

Paul seized on Festivus, which is celebrated each year on December 23, to share some of his own grievances with his fellow candidates and the government in general–and he did so with an epic Twitter rant. Here’s a sampling of the best Tweets:

He, of course, started off with the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump referencing his extremely questionable use of the term “schlonged.”

Next he moves on to his fellow Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. For context, Cruz was born in Canada.

He offered some critiques of his GOP competition:

And he was sure to make it a bipartisan affair, taking shots at his competition on the other side of the aisle.

When he finished with his competition he, naturally, took a brief pause to ask for money.

Finally, he went through some of the highlights from his Waste Report. He highlighted public housing projects, which he claims give housing subsidies to people who don’t need it. Because people only need to qualify as low-income when entering housing programs, they can continue to receive subsidies after they no longer meet that criteria. He also criticized the use of federal funds for a study on why “Americans don’t want to use the metric system.”

Not everything in Paul’s report would be universally categorized as waste, like a study that sought to understand the role of emotions in decision-making, but you have to give him credit for cataloging a long list of spending that he deems questionable, not to mention the glorious way in which he chose to expose them.

While it’s fair to say the use of Festivus and ad-hominem attacks on his competition are an effective way to get media attention (I admittedly fell for the trap), Paul stayed true to his fiscal conservatism and had fun while doing it. I generally criticize campaigns’ often gimmicky use of social media, but this time, I have to give Rand Paul some credit.

Kevin Rizzo
Kevin Rizzo
Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.
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