The only chance that the GOP has of doing what the party claims are their goals is if Rand Paul is the GOP candidate for president.
If he is, the GOP will win the presidency in a landslide. Rand Paul will DESTROY Hillary Clinton in the eyes of the voters. She will have a nervous breakdown before the election as her abject failure becomes obvious to her.
Rand Paul is the only GOP candidate that has displayed any statesmanship, any gravitas, any ability to reason as a public servant on behalf of the American sovereign people.
All the rest are obviously power-hungry monarchists.

Of course, the media will attempt to discredit anything that Rand Paul said, because they are beneficiaries of status quo and the media is most deserving of the titles power-monger and king maker. They would suffer a great loss of power if Paul was the GOP candidate and they will do anything to prevent that.
That is why they will praise Carly Fiorina beyond all reason.
Fiorina is the classic candidate. She will say anything that her audience wants to hear to get elected. She is brilliant at selling herself to her audience and will follow through on all her smaller government promises just as GOP candidates have in the past. In her most admired moments of the debate she pledged to do things that conservatives have been brainwashed to desire: build the world's strongest military, don't even talk to Putin since Russians only understand force. Not a single detail on how to pay for all the promises she makes. Not a word on limiting government, only more programs and more spending. Carly is by far the slickest snake oil salesman on the stage, a perfect GOP answer to Hillary, a GOP queen who is easily controlled by her lust for power.

@freedomforall statements may have been correct in the past. But I think Rand would be instantly smeared with charges of hating the poor and worse. His policy suggestions are correct and would result in more wealth for everyone. But the yelling would drown out the logic. For example, if you say eliminate the minimum wage, pundits say you are hurting poor people. Of course a high minimum wage means less poor people (or poorly skilled people) have a job at all. And no minimum wage means anyone can have a job. Similarly, ending government run health care means people bleeding to death in the streets. Ending the $140 billion Department of Agriculture means people don't eat or maybe farmers go broke. The current culture will not elect Rand Paul.

I would vote for Rand in a heartbeat. But libertarians are principled thinkers and there is an enormous foundation of knowledge needed to appreciate it and that does not exist in the United States. As Henry Ford said, "Thinking is hard which is why so few people do it."

The last time I voted my "conscience," I, by default, elected Bill Clinton.

Of all the prospective candidates, Rand Paul comes the closest to Objectivism. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, he has as much a chance of winning the nomination, let alone the election as frying and egg on a car hood in the wintertime in Maine.

As much as I liked what Rand Paul had to say, did anyone notice that there was only one person who applauded after a couple of things he said. I think I heard a few crickets.

Media debate moderators (regardless of network) will continue to attempt to marginalize Rand.

Also, he(Rand) and Mike Huchabie(sp) were the only ones who quoted the Constitution with any degree of knowledge.

Not a peep about Carson??

It was comforting to hear Rand Paul. But, nobody engaged him so he did not get to say much. The establishment group wanted to keep the focus on them, and they were successful.

If the debate rules were change so each person had the same amount of time, less trivia and thanking of family members for attending would happen. Suppose, for example, there is a one hour debate with ten candidates. Allocate each candidate six minutes. The candidate can spend the six minutes in whatever way it (notice non-sexist) chooses.

Would love a Paul-Carson ticket!

The best thing about the debate is that it was the highest ratings CNN has EVER had. LOL... their target viewership was just not involved.

Don't be misled by RP: his Libertarianism is not a good thing; he is still FAR from an Objectivist.
Fiorina stands out to me as the most rational.