Rand Paul 2010 | U.S. Senate

WHAS reports Rand Paul’s main primary opponent’s first public response to a suggested University of Louisville debate was to claim falsely that student Andrew Carroll was giving special treatment to the Paul campaign:

“But Nate Hodson, Grayson’s campaign manager indicated that the college group had not given Grayson’s team much time to respond.”

“”We just received the invitation and we’ll consider it,” Hodson told me on Monday, “We look forward to debating Rand Paul many times before the primary.”"

“With the U of L Republicans issuing a news release in apparently the same breath as issuing the invitation, it made me wonder if the students coordinated their news release with the Paul campaign.”

“But, Carroll says he is an undecided voter who has both volunteered for Grayson’s Secretary of State campaign, and attended a Rand Paul healthcare forum at a local high school. Carroll says “each campaign was notified of the debate equally, and prior to the press release and official invitations being sent out.”"

“And how was each campaign initially notified by the college students? Interestingly, Carroll says “on October 23, I sent personal messages on Facebook.”"

“”(Paul campaign manager) David Adams called me back within ten minutes,” Carroll said, but he says he never heard back from the Grayson camp until December 9, when Carroll says Grayson’s new political director Jeremy Hughes “replied that he was not sure what debates Trey would be doing but he stated: ‘I’ll just be honest with you, the problem with doing them at colleges is then every college wants to do one, and you get nothing done in the campaign but doing debates that no one sees. But I can assure you there definitely will be a debate in Louisville.’”"

“Carroll says the Grayson campaign has yet to make any further correspondence with the UofL College Republicans. He says the process was “entirely fair” and that “the UofL College Republicans news release is in no way, shape, or form an attempt to embarrass Secretary of State Grayson. Secretary Grayson has spoken at prior UofL College Republican events in past years, and has always been a friend to the UofL College Republicans. Personally, Secretary Grayson has always been kind to me, and I would never seek to embarrass him in any way. This is why I was so surprised that the Grayson campaign indicated he would be unwilling to come to UofL for a debate. The press release was our way of expressing our excitement that Rand Paul, a frontrunner in the race for United States Senate, was willing to come to UofL for a debate.”"

Read the whole story here.

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