Sen. Rand Paul Endorses Mitt Romney

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul went on Fox's "The Sean Hannity Show" Thursday night to endorse former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“First of all, before you say what I think you’re going to say, did you check in with your congressman father?” Hannity asked in reference to Sen. Paul’s father, Texas Congressman and former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul.

“Well, you know, my first choice had always been my father. I campaigned for him when I was 11-years old. He’s still my first pick. But you know, now that the nominating process is over, tonight I’m happy to announce I’m going to be supporting Governor Romney,” the Kentucky Senator replied.

“Tell me why you’re supporting Governor Romney,” Hannity said.

“Governor Romney and I actually have quite a few similarities,” Sen. Paul replied, stressing their similar political histories (Romney’s father also ran for president) and family values.

Sen. Paul continued:

I met with him recently. I had about a 30 minute meeting with him…and we talked about a lot of issues.

[…]

We talked issues, frankly, that are very important to me, that are important to my dad, and to many of his followers. And many of these Gov. Romney has already taken a position on. One of the big issues for our supporters, for myself, and my dad is auditing the Fed. We think there needs to be more transparency to the Fed and more oversight by Congress. This is something Gov. Romney was supportive of throughout his campaign and also was supportive of in private to me.

We talked about other issues that are important to my dad’s followers. My dad has a legion of young followers who are on the Internet and they think they rule the Internet (maybe they do, maybe they don’t), but they’re very concerned about the freedom of the internet. There’s been legislation recently, SOPA, that Gov. Romney came out in the debates and was opposed to this SOPA which would take away some of the process of ownership on the Internet and we were very afraid that it would limit internet freedom and Gov. Romney is right there with us on those issues also.

So I think there’s a lot of kinship on those issues.

“When it comes to fiscal responsibility, Obamacare, there are vast differences here,” Hannity said in reference to Gov. Romney’s political spending versus President Obama’s, “Do you think this country can survive four more years of Obama?”

“No,” Sen. Paul replied, “My state is really suffering. We stand to lose 50,000 jobs in the coal industry if President Obama continues. I think one thing Gov. Romney would make as a president is he would bring a more balanced approach to regulation.”

“We’re going to have some regulations. Some regulation actually protects the environment. But President Obama has allowed the tilt and the balance to go so far that he’s crushing the economy down, crushing jobs,” he added.

Sen. Paul went on to say that he plans on stumping for Romney and that he believes the former Massachusetts Governor will make a very sober and responsible Commander-in-Chief.