Bill Straub: It’s not just hard to find a path to the White House for Sen. Rand Paul – it’s impossible

WASHINGTON – Sen. Rand Paul, the man who would be president, is not handling the alienation of affections from Republican voters to other competitors very well.

In a snit, with his poll numbers dropping while others soar, the Bowling Green lawmaker refused to participate in a debate involving the also-rans in the GOP field when he failed to qualify for the main event – depriving him of a seat at the big boy’s table.

And he made his feelings known about the perceived slight by extending a middle finger – also known as flipping the bird, a middle finger salute and various other things that can’t be published herein – toward the media he is blaming for his refutation.

This most recent display of boorish behavior by the commonwealth’s junior senator verifies the proposition that he doesn’t possess the temperament to be president, unless you can somehow conceive of Abraham Lincoln flipping off a heckler from the dais at Gettysburg or FDR suggesting that Father Coughlin kiss him where the sun don’t shine.

Of course the antic raises questions about exactly what profession Sen. Paul has the temperament for. A New York City cabbie, perhaps, or maybe head basketball coach at the University of Louisville, a job that may be made available soon. But one certainly doesn’t care to see him raise his finger to Vladimir Putin in the midst of nuclear arms negotiations or Li Keqiang during trade discussions.

Regardless, the chances of Paul actually winning the GOP presidential nomination are so thin as to be transparent. He has been cast from the main debate stage and none of the polls show him carrying more than a handful of delegates with him to the party’s convention in Cleveland this summer. He may not even win the Kentucky caucuses – and he invented the doggone thing.

But Paul appears determined to hang around until the last dog dies, even though Fido succumbed some months ago, perhaps from the ennui visited upon him by this useless presidential campaign. The truth is, after an early surge fueled by curiosity, voters have indicated they’re not interested in his wares and have moved on.

The Paul campaign remains optimistic that it is destined for late gains in Iowa, the site of the first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 1. The hope is that college students will set aside their video game controllers for a few precious moments, venture toward a meeting on a cold, Hawkeye State Monday night and cast their lot with the perceived libertarian competing against a group of Attila’s Huns.

Not much to hang your hat on. And the landscape doesn’t look much better in New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada, the following stops in the nomination process where businessman Donald Trump, who Paul recently compared to Gollum in the “The Lord of the Rings’’ trilogy, is sucking up all the air.

It’s not hard to find a path to the White House for Rand Paul – it’s impossible. Like everyone else in the campaign he has been shifting his weight from leg to leg waiting for Trump to implode so he can be there to pick up the pieces. That has not happened and as things currently stand Gollum is running neck-and-neck with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, in Iowa while maintaining strong advantages in all of the contests leading up to Super Tuesday on March 6.

And if Trump does collapse – and there’s reason to believe he won’t have the delegates needed to assure his nomination when the convention finally rolls around – others are better positioned to benefit. Cruz, as oily a conman as you’re ever likely to encounter this side of a carnival midway, continues to gain steam and establishment voters appear ready to gather around Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, even though he is, by all available evidence a mile wide and an inch deep.

So why does Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, the nebbish from Bowling Green, persist in this costly effort despite all odds? He would have an easy re-election victory in a state that grows redder than a rose day by day and continue the sort of bomb throwing from the rafters that appears to provide him with such joy. A presidential campaign consumes a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and persisting in the face of all available evidence ought to earn one a private room in the psych ward at Bellevue.

The only possible answer is that Paul’s ego is so great that he can’t conceive of anyone winning the presidency when he has made himself available. The power of his convictions alone will ultimately turn the tide and deliver the accolades he so richly deserves.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he remains in single digits – low single digits at that – with at least five other contenders maintaining an edge with the delegate process launching less than two weeks from now.

Paul has endured a deep plummet in this campaign, from ostensible frontrunner to playing patty cake with the likes of Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina, whose recent distasteful comments about the marriage of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton should disqualify her from any position she seeks. But he persists in asserting that his way is the true way.

One thing Paul probably shouldn’t worry much about is retaining his seat in the Senate after the last embers of a failed presidential campaign have died. There is some concern within state Republican circles that his continued dalliance with moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will somehow deny him a second term.

The New York Times on Wednesday ran a story asserting that his presidential aspirations are interfering with his parallel campaign to return to the Senate.

Just as it’s impossible to imagine a President Rand Paul at this juncture, it’s almost as difficult to imagine a Democrat beating any Republican for any federal office in the commonwealth, save for the Third Congressional District centered on Louisville where Rep. John Yarmuth reigns supreme.

The state’s surge toward a troubling brand of GOP conservatism isn’t going to be halted any time soon. The Democratic bench at this juncture is weak – no major candidate has so much as declared his or her candidacy. Lexington Mayor Jim Gray appears to be Paul’s most likely foe but it’s hard to see him gaining traction in Eastern and Western Kentucky, spots that used to be reliable for Democrats.

So rest assured that those raising concerns about his return to the upper chamber will be the next target for his middle finger.

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.