Rand Paul gets no time for debt limit fight he wanted to pick

A half-hour passed in Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate before Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky even got his first words in.

It’s not easy for any candidate to get debate moderators to direct a question to their way when there are 10 candidates on the stage — unless that candidate is Donald Trump — but usually, when a politician feels as if he’s being edged out of the conversation, he chimes in to complain about the injustice of getting unequal time.

But Paul didn’t seem interested in trying to aggressively establish a presence on the debate stage, even though the timing was perfect for him to do so.

Since it became clear Monday night that Republican leaders in Congress had negotiated a debt limit and budget deal with Democrats, Paul has been sending out campaign fundraising notices detailing his opposition to the agreement.

Earlier Wednesday, Paul’s campaign blasted out an email saying, “I’m going to filibuster.” It denounced the two-year budget agreement, which would set spending levels for the next two fiscal years and suspend the debt ceiling until March 2017, as a deplorable product of the “Washington machine.”

“Fellow conservative — Last night I announced my plan to FILIBUSTER the phony debt ceiling ‘deal’ between President Obama and outgoing House Speaker John Boehner,” Paul’s email began. “When I take the stage in Boulder, Colorado tonight for the Republican Presidential debate, I plan to rip this ‘deal’ and the rest of the Washington Machine to shreds.”

Paul never really got the chance to tear down the deal as he threatened he would, although in the same email, he had warned that this might happen, because “the media and political establishment” were likely to “black out and silence” his message. His campaign emailed again at 10:12 p.m., minutes after the debate was scheduled to end, lamenting that he had been given so few minutes to speak.

But Paul’s silence on the issue was not unique on the stage, even though other candidates spoke more. No candidate really had his or her feet held to the fire on the issue of the debt limit, the government’s congressionally authorized credit line to pay the debts it has accrued.

Opposition to raising the debt limit was at the core of the tea party message that helped sweep Republicans back into the House majority in 2010, but it also led to the summer 2011 fiscal crisis, in which conservative resistance to raising the debt ceiling led to market uncertainty and the first credit downgrade for the government since 1941.

The House approved a debt limit extension, with a Democratic majority, earlier Wednesday. And the Senate, where three of the candidates on the main debate stage serve, is expected to start voting on the measure later this week.

Fights over the debt limit have become so perilous over the past five years that taking the issue off the table until a new president assumes the White House was a top priority for outgoing Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Apparently, however, it was not a priority for the CNBC moderators to push presidential hopefuls to stake out their positions on the issue. (CNBC is a Yahoo media partner.)

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was given 30 seconds to address the debt limit, but digressed from the subject, instead choosing to focus on the solvency of Social Security, an issue related to the debt limit only in that it is one of many programs the government appropriates and must pay for. He has said he will oppose the pending agreement, calling the legislation a “golden parachute” for Boehner and an example of the insidious tactics of the “Washington cartel.”

Voters will know soon enough where these senators stand: Paul, Cruz and Marco Rubio of Florida, along with Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who appeared in the evening’s first debate, will presumably appear in Washington to cast their votes.

Of that group, Graham is the only member who has said he will vote to set spending levels and raise the debt ceiling.

But prospective Republican primary voters might never know where the other candidates, who are not currently in Congress, stand on an important issue that has divided members of the party.