Politics is always a risky business, with the odds of success the steepest for anyone running for president. So many factors have to line up just right to capture a nomination, and even then, the chances of winning the general election are roughly 50-50. But Sen. Rand Paul's approach to running takes risk-taking to an entirely different and higher level. Like his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, Rand Paul gets high marks for ideological originality. Most members of Congress and presidential candidates simply embrace either a liberal or a conservative agenda (in the past, a center-left or center-right approach worked), rarely straying far from that standard dogma. Simply knowing most lawmakers' positions on one or two issues can let you pretty much predict where they are on many more. But with the Paul father and son, it is like each started off with a blank legal pad and constructed a custom ideology, incorporating libertarianism, populism, and a distinctly non-internationalist and noninterventionist approach to foreign policy. While I do not think that Rand Paul's ideology is poll-driven in any way and
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