Published: October 16, 2009 04:05 pm      

Paul touts fundraisng success, stakes positions on federal issues

FRANKFORT — Rand Paul, the Bowling Green eye surgeon seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, expects to raise as much as $2 million and says federal government should get out of the education business.

Paul raised over $1 million in the third quarter and said he now has about 14,000 donors and he expects the number to grow to as many as 20,000. He said he thinks he can raise as much as $2 million for the primary in which he’s opposed by Secretary of State Trey Grayson and Elkton businessman and veteran Bill Johnson.

He conceded Grayson is the current choice of “establishment” Republicans but said that may be changing.

“I do sense change when we go to GOP events and we’re treated much more respectfully, we’re treated on a much more equal footing,” Paul said in a teleconference Friday with reporters.

But he expects some in the party to rally to Grayson’s side if he closes the gap and turns the race into a real contest,, something he said he thinks he can do by spring.

Paul has focused on runaway federal spending, deficits and bailouts of large corporations in his campaign so far. He promises never to vote for an unbalanced budget and said, “We need a rule” to require balanced federal budgets as most states are required to do.

He didn’t back off that stance Friday, even when asked if he’d support federally funded projects in Kentucky – projects about which Kentucky’s senior senator and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell brags about securing.

“I will not earmark funds and I think that’s part of the problem in Washington,” Paul said. “Our budget is so far out of whack we are drowning in a sea of debt that is drowning our economy.”

But he was more evasive when it came to some social issues like abortion and gay marriage. He said he believes marriage is between a man and woman but wouldn’t say how he’d vote on such issues in the Senate, instead saying such matters should be left up to states.

Paul said he would vote to restrict or ban late-term or partial-birth abortions but didn’t specify how he might vote on other abortion questions.

“I don’t believe in any federal funding of abortion,” Paul said. “But I think ideally a lot of these things should be done at the state level.”

He said there is “no constitutional mandate” for health care

Paul was asked if he opposes funding for Medicare – the costly but popular government run medical coverage for senior citizens.

“I think because we’ve made three or four generations dependent on it, we can’t (end it),” Paul said. But he might have opposed federal involvement when Medicare was first debated and passed, he said.

He said if elected he’ll vote against foreign aid appropriations, claiming most of the money is stolen by corrupt governments. He said national defense is the government’s first obligation and said he’d devote a higher percentage of the federal budget to defense, though the actual amount might be smaller in a much reduced budget if he got his way.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.