In a Slate piece, David Auerbach asks whether Rand Paul or some other Republican could siphon votes from left-leaning technologists concerned about civil liberties. That could happen, although the GOP would need to reposition itself significantly for such a candidate to triumph in the Republican Primary.

I will take issue with Auerbach’s depiction of former Democratic candidate Howard Dean, the clear antecedent to the Paul brand. The author writes this of the former Vermont governor: “…he ended up impacting the Democratic agenda (anti-war, expanded health care, gay rights) for years.” Dean had an impact on the American electoral process for sure, realizing before anyone that grassroots and social media could be wedded to buoy a largely unknown candidate, but I don’t believe he influenced the Democratic agenda at all. Only the Iraq War becoming a boondoggle made Democrats turn against it, universal health care was on the docket long before 2004 and neither of the main 2008 contenders supported gay marriage (Hillary Clinton opposed it and Barack Obama was purposely vague); the tide turned on that issue for the party only because voters and polls moved leftward.

Auerbach’s opening:

Every time Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul assails mass government surveillance on the floor of the Senate, it is surprising to see who emerges to praise the erratically unorthodox Republican, from Edward Snowden to Glenn Greenwald to true-blue progressive reporter Marcy Wheeler. This support comes with caveats, of course. But the lefty applause for Paul also arrives at a moment of a distinctly lacking enthusiasm for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. More importantly, these plaudits align with many of the concerns of a quiet but influential contingent of liberal-leaning techies who might one day become Rand Democrats—or Democrats willing to support some other, future right-wing firebrand with lefty-compatible ideas about civil liberties—much in the way disaffected blue-collar workers became Reagan Democrats. Think of them as the New Randroids—and definitely not because they admire Ayn Rand, which they don’t. Progressives and loyal Democrats would be wise not to ignore them.

Rand Paul’s father, Ron Paul, has long enjoyed a libertarian following within what I call the tech laity—the vast number of tech workers who don’t work for buzzy startups or dominate the tech press. This group of engineers and other research and development workers, far less white and somewhat less male than what’s portrayed in the media, clusters around industry hubs in the Bay Area, Seattle, Boston, North Carolina’s Research Triangle, Austin, Los Angeles, and so on. The libertarians among them, who hate the Federal Reserve and have funded the presidential ambitions of Paul pere, make up a tiny minority of the whole. What’s been surprising is how hard Rand Paul has worked to broaden that small following in the hopes of reaching disaffected Republicans and Democrats. He has about as much chance of winning the nomination as Howard Dean, Paul’s closest antecedent, did in 2004. But Dean came closer than most people remember, and he ended up impacting the Democratic agenda (anti-war, expanded health care, gay rights) for years. Paul hopes to do the same—and perhaps make another run at the presidency in 2020 or 2024.•