RAND PAUL CAN'T WIN IN 2016 -- AT LEAST NOT AS A PAULITE

Memeorandum and Power Line are flagging this new Gallup poll:

Americans' Sympathies for Israel Match All-Time High

... Americans' sympathies lean heavily toward the Israelis over the Palestinians, 64% vs. 12%. Americans' partiality for Israel has consistently exceeded 60% since 2010; however, today's 64% ties the highest Gallup has recorded in a quarter century, last seen in 1991 during the Gulf War....

Support for Israel has increased among all three party groups since 2001, but particularly among Republicans and independents. The percentage sympathizing more with the Israelis has increased by 18 percentage points among Republicans (from 60% to 78%) and by 21 points among independents (from 42% to 63%). By comparison, Democrats' support has increased four points (from 51% to 55%)....

This tells me that, a certain recent filibuster notwithstanding, Republicans and (presumably) Republican-leaning independents want the U.S. to remain bellicose in the foreign policy sphere -- and no, the right's hawks aren't dying off and being replaced by small-government peaceniks. It tells me that the Glenn Greenwalds and Conor Friedersdorfs and David Sirotas of the world are naive if they think Rand Paul is going to lead America away from militarism on his way to winning the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

I'm sure he's going to run -- but he's going to lose if he runs as a Paulite.

And he knows that, as he made clear in January:

In a recent interview with Breitbart News, Paul offered a surprising viewpoint regarding Israel, saying, "We should announce to the world ... that any attack on Israel will be treated as an attack on the United States."

This was, to say the least, quite a turnaround:

The comments by Paul, who recently returned from a trip to Israel, are surprising. During his trip to Israel, Paul called on the U.S. to reduce its foreign aid to Israel, which amounts to around $3 billion per year for military purposes.

Paul told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies that "borrowing from one country to give to another," only serves to put more pressure on the US and to burden it with more debt, adding, "It will be harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process...I think there will be significant repercussions of running massive deficits ... you destroy your currency by spending money you don't have."

... Paul added that cutting aid forces Israel to become more sovereign and less reliant on the U.S., citing a 1996 speech by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in which he laid out plans to wean the country off American aid.

Paul is also one of only two GOP senators who recently withheld their signatures from a letter by 11 GOP senators who have vowed continued financial support for Israel.

True Paulism is going to remain a boutique taste in the GOP for the foreseeable future.