The Rand Paul pile-on

The hawks don’t doubt that there are some Republicans who share Paul’s views. But they’re concerned that, in the heat of a presidential campaign, the coverage will make the foreign policy debate within the GOP sound more evenly divided than it really is.

“I think there is a fear that you’re going to see a million stories saying the Republican Party is divided between two views — the Rand Paul view and the other view — as if it were a 50-50 thing, rather than Paul being isolated on the fringe,” Abrams said.

Others worry that Republican voters who aren’t big on foreign policy have long been presumed to support hawks, but now may be increasingly siding with Paul.

“There is clearly is a Republican foreign policy consensus, and those who care most deeply about maintaining American leadership in the world are worried that silence means disagreement — not agreement — anymore,” added Mackenzie Eaglen, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It used to be that you could assume there was a silent majority behind that world view, and that is no longer the case.”