What do former Govs. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) and Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) have in common with Hillary Clinton? According to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), they’re all old news.
{mosads}Paul, who’s openly flirting with a presidential bid, tweeted a composite picture of the three politicians side by side on Wednesdasy along with the text: “The same old candidates running for President #ThingsToRunFrom.”
Romney won the Republican nomination in 2012 after a failed bid in 2008 while Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to President Obama in 2008. Bush has never run for national office.
Paul hasn’t publicly announced a bid, but he’s used appearances and social media to rib his potential challengers on both sides of the aisle. Last week, he jokingly tweeted that Romney gave Bush a friendship bracelet to highlight their support of Common Core education standards during their recent meeting in Utah.
Paul has struggled in recent national polling; a Real Clear Politics average of polls shows him in sixth place. But while he isn’t seen as an establishment favorite, he has an ardent following among libertarians and some younger conservatives.
He’s also repeatedly slammed Clinton ahead of her assumed presidential bid. He chided her during a hearing on the Benghazi consulate attacks, where he said that he would have fired her as Secretary of State if he had been president during the attacks. And after the 2014 midterm elections, he called her “Tuesday’s biggest loser” on Twitter and said that voters sent a message to her and President Obama.