Rand Paul called out his own campaign for a ‘dumbass’ Internet move

Sen Rand Paul's (R-KY) campaign decided to livestream a presidential candidate's typical day of Iowa campaigning Oct 13, in all its glorious monotony. Sen Paul was not the most natural candidate for the Truman Show treatment; earlier in 2015, he said that the briefly popular livestream app Meerkat might ruin the last vestiges of reality. "If we know that every interaction with every voter is going to be filmed, it’ll mean that you have plastic candidates saying nothing," he said then. "No response, no nodding of the head, because you know everything will be filmed."

On Oct 13, his take appeared to have shifted. “I wish I knew" why the livestream was happening, Sen Paul said. “I’ve been saying, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this and now we’re doing this.” In response to one of Google's most-asked questions -- are you still running for president? -- he had this reply: "I wouldn’t be doing this dumbass livestreaming if I weren’t," he said. "So yes, I still am running for president, so get over it."